


Hell and High Water

by StarrBomb



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aquariums, Can you blame him, Captivity, Fluff, Freak Show, Gonna meet some more peeps, Happy Ending, Healing, Human!Allura, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Illegal Activities, Lance Angst, Lance is tank claustrophobic, M/M, Mermaid!Pidge, PTSD, Recovery, Shangst Week, So much angst, Torture, Underground Fights, black market, he don't like small glass boxes, human!coran, mermaid au, mermaid lance, mermaid! lance, mermaid!matt, midnight zone mermaid lance, shiro is so sweet, sort of a happy ending, there's some fluff too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-11-20 21:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11343876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrBomb/pseuds/StarrBomb
Summary: All his life, he's known these three things.The darkness.Loneliness.And fear.But he soon comes to understand a much more different and harsher meaning behind these things. And somehow, he ends up finding something he never knew he needed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to @legendary-guardian-of-fun for being a huge help while I was writing this. Thank you! 
> 
> Also, a little background knowledge for you: mermaids are a well known fact I this world, many people just leave them be. Lance's parents are sort of an impossible coupling, his mother being a usual, fun in the sun mermaid, while his father is a trench level merman. Not much is known about midnight/trench zone mermaids, and many believe them to be just myths. So Lance is sort of in a tight spot of being the only thing like himself out there.

He's only known three things his entire life.

The darkness.

loneliness.

And fear.

  
He's heard the songs from mermaids that live in the light, whenever they get close enough to his chasm, their fun and light tunes echo down the walls and into his home. He hears their declarations of love and if friendship, of kinship with their family. Something he has never had.

While he's tried to made friends in the past; he learned early on that no one wants to be friends with a midnight merman like him. Not with his sharp teeth and armored scales. Not with his spines that travel down his back. Not with his coloring and his scars. The only things he's been able to call ‘friends’ is the few fish that would swim under him when he must travel to new caverns and ravines, but he knows they're only using him as protection. He can't blame them for hiding under him, no creature really tries to fight him or hunt him anymore.

Down here,in the midnight zone, he is the hunter.

It doesn't mean that there haven't been challengers in the past; creatures of the deep trying to prey on him when he was younger and weaker or trying to impede on his hunting grounds. And he wears the scars he gained from these battles to prove he is not to be taken lightly. No one bothers him in his domain, no one dares to try and go down into it. To afraid that his wrath will end their lives. Rumors of his fights with sharks and squids and other creatures of the deep have travelled so far that even he has heard of them. He doesn't blame them for being scared of him. He doesn't blame them for keeping their distance from the chasms and ravines, afraid to be his next victim. Though, if they knew him, they would realize that he is not mindless monster like all the rumors say, he does not attack unprovoked or for the fun of it. He is not that type of merman. Of course he doesn't really know any other type.

  
He never knew his parents; but of course, he's never met anyone like him. Never heard of them, never seen a glimpse of something like him. He doesn't even know his name, or if he even has one. Many have called him a monster, some call him a myth or a legend. But he's never heard anyone call a name down into his ravines. Never something that someone could deem as a name.

  
Sometimes, when the quiet and darkness get to be too much for him, he'll swim as high as he dares, sometimes even getting into the twilight zone, and he'll wonder what it's like to live in the light, with the other mermaids and to see that is out above the sea, in the warmth of the light. But He knows that it would be impossible to do this. His eyes being accustomed to the pitch black darkness and soft lighting from the bioluminescent occupants. Going to the upper zone for more than the few minutes it takes for him to find another cavern is always risky, but going up full time would probably make him of blind. Besides the fact that he is larger than the average merman, it would probably cause some humans to think of him as some sea beast and try to kill him. The upper zone is too dangerous for a merman like him, so he stays in the dark, where it's safe.

He moves through the sea, always keeping to the darkest parts to avoid detection. The large armored plates moving seamlessly with each powerful wave of his tattered and ripped tail. The thin spines that travel down his spine picking up every movement around him, helping him keep tabs on where any possible prey or predator might be. He knows that many predators have learned to fear him as much as the other mermaids do, but he's been wrong before,and has paid the price for such hope of being able to relax. But he's learned, and now he never lets his guard down.

He passes by the many bioluminescent fish that live in these cold waters with him; many of which would terrify other mermaids or merman; but to him they are merely a common occurrence. helping to give a little light in their dark home. His own bioluminescence hidden by his larger armored scales, only glimpses of it is shown when he moves, giving off a flickering pattern that dances off the high walls of the ravine that he currently glides through, warning any predators that he is not to be messed with, or luring in prey for him to eat. But that seems to be the problem as of right now, too many now hide from him when they see his lights or even feel his presence coming near them, forcing him to have to travel to another chasm to find a new hunting ground. His brown hair floating near his eyes as he lazily moves through the water, the cold water a soothing balm to his overactive mind.

To him, today should like every other lonely day. Except something doesn't feel right about today. It's quiet. Which it always is. But it feels like it not for the usual reasons. It's unnervingly quiet.

As he nears the end of the ravine, he starts to swim slower, building up the energy for him to swim through the upper waters at incredible speeds to avoid being found and to limit his time in the brighter waters. at least until he is able to get out into the open sea, where he will be able to find the midnight zone once again. With one strong flick of his tail, he shoots out of the ravine, and quickly speeds towards the open ocean, looking for any sign of the twilight zone, so that he may find better cover than being out in the open.

That is when his spines pick up on something disturbing the water above him. By the time he looks up, he sees the net coming down hard and fast, covering a wide area of where he is. He quickly tries to swim out of reach, but it seems that the net was too quick for him, as it drapes around him and starts to tangle around his tail and fins. He tries to bite through it, but the net is already pulling him up; higher and higher to the brightness, making it hard on his eyes to be able to see anything. Suddenly he's no longer in the water, while he can't see it, he can no longer get in a good deep breath through his gills. He's suddenly dropped onto something hard and dry and rough on his skin. All he can hear is loud yelling in words he can't understand, and the call of something that is not organic. He can't get a read on any of it, his sense being overloaded with sounds and smells and that sea-damned brightness that make it impossible to see anything. It's all just too much for him, he tries to find water again, but it seems that whoever was yelling from before is starting to drag him; his skin breaking against the rough surface underneath him.

He never really prayed to any of the gods that many mermen believe in, but he finds himself wishing to whoever is out there that he's going to be back in the sea again; to be able to breath right again. But no, it seems that even the gods have forsaken him, as he's pulled down into some sort of encased cave, and he's dumped into a small pool of water, net still tangled around his arms and tail.

“At least it's darker down here than up there.”  
He thinks to himself, trying to keep his scales from drying out in the small pool. It's obviously too small for him; not even being able to make a complete turn. But he'll take what he can get, at least until he finds a way out of this odd cave. But first he needs to get this net off of him, or else it could do more damage to his fins and tail. It feels like it takes him all day to get the net off, and he knows that he'll definitely have some new rips in his tail fin. But it seems that not of his spines got damaged, so he's calling it a small win. It's around this time that someone enters the cave, bringing the smell of something odd with them. He sees that it's a large old man, a scar traveling down the side of his face, and a cruel look in his eyes that even some sharks would avoid him at all costs. He dumps the strange smelling thing into the small pool, and his hunger getting the best of him, he swims down to see that it's a piece of fish. As he picks it up and makes sure nothing was done to it, he feels something clamping down onto his tail. He whirls around and sees that the man has attached a chain onto his tail. Long enough to let him move around freely in the pool, but short enough to keep him just in the pool. He can't help but thrash his tail about, trying to rid himself of the device keeping him there. And while he loses water from the thrashing, the cold stone still stays on tight around the base of his tail fin. He can hear the man giving off some sort of chuffing, and realizes that that must be how humans laugh. This man is laughing at him. He instinctively bares his teeth and nails, trying to fan out his fins in the small space. But it only seems to make the man laugh even more.

The man leans down and says the first words he's heard since they stole him from his home.

“Get used to it. Cause as soon as we get back to the mainland, you're gonna be sold to the highest bidder.”

And with that the man laughs as he leaves him alone in the cave once again. And while he wasn't able to completely understand what that man said, he understood enough to know that he might never go back home again. Not knowing what else to do, the starts to thrash his tail once again, screaming out, hoping for the chain to give and break. But it still hold strong, while his wails echo off the wall of the cave.

No.

This is no cave.

This is a cage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He doesn't know how long he's stuck in the cage. Days? Weeks? He can't tell without the ocean.  
Without his home. The only tell of time is when the man comes down to give him a measly amount of food, not enough to quell his hunger, but at least enough to keep him alive. But even then, sometimes it feels like days pass before he comes back with whatever scraps of fish he gives him.

The first few days, he tries endlessly to break the chain, but all it got him was splashing more water out of the pool and terrible burns from where the stone contexts to his tail. So he's left with an aching tail and almost less than half the water he started out with. And he man never refills the pool, rather to let him be miserable than to even give him a drop of water back.

The rocking of the cage at least keeps the water from staying stagnant. but even then, after a few more days, even with the constant rocking, the water becomes stale and filled with grime. All it is now is a flight slosh of water. Something not even bottom feeders would touch. The grime begins to get in between his scales, causing him to rub against the lip of the pool, trying to get some relief from the terrible feeling. All it does cause is for him to rub his scales off, causing the muscle and skin beneath it to become raw and agitated. And all he can do is sit in the filth and hope to stave off the itch for a little longer.

Sleep is impossible to get in the cage. Anytime that he is able to even close his eyes long enough to try and regain some strength and energy, the itchiness of his scales become that much more apparent to him, as well as the state of his hunger and thirst. And anytime he is able to get any sleep, which is rare, he only get restless dreams he of what his fate might be when the cage reaches its destination. None of them are ever good.

His scales begin to dry out, he believes it's been about a few weeks now, where the water no longer reaches and everything just feels too stretched out over his tail and his skins. The cramped space leaves little room to stretch out his fins, and soon they begin to cramp and lock up from the minimal space and lack of use. After that his fins start to just accept the position they are in, which he can't tell is worse than the cramps or not.

After what he can only guess has been a month, maybe, the man comes down with something different than the usual scraps of food. Instead there's something else in his hands, and he can already smell what one of them is.

Water.

As the man steps up to the edge of the pool, he tries to lift himself up, but without eating as much as he should, he's struggling to lift himself. He's able to get his torso above the lip of the pool, and just rests there, hoping for even just a sip of fresh clean water. The man leans down and takes hold of his face in his hand, something rough and thick pressing into the underside of his jaw.

“Awww, does our little guest want something?”

He struggles to answer, as the man moves his hand from his jaw to his throat, squeezing it to show that while he may have the ability to rip his arm off, the man is in complete control.

“Do you want some water? I mean, you did waste all of the water I already gave you….”

As he says this, the man puts more pressure on his throat, inadvertently squeezing his gills shut, making the large deep sea merman feel small and powerless for once in his lonely life.

“But i would be willing to give you some more…….if you beg for it. Like a good pet.”

The words. He can’t understand much of what the Human said, the only words he could pick up were ‘water’ and ‘beg’, but that was enough to know what the he wanted him to do. He may be trapped here, caged and deprived of anything that he actually needs, but he still has some of his pride. He would never beg this man. This Beast. That would mean giving up whatever hope he has left of getting out of the cage, that would mean handing over control to this Beast.

Even with his airway being constricted and his gills forcefully closed, he gathers as much strength as he could and with one swipe of his hand, the man lets go with a growl, dropping him back into the pool of brown water, hard. holding the bleeding gashes he had made, the man lets out a nasty growl and reaches down and is able to hook his hand into one of his gills. The man drags him out of the pool, his screams going unheard as the man dumps him as far out of the tank as the chain will go. He tries to steady his breathing through the pain, checking to see if his gill was damaged in anyway. But soon all of that becomes a distant memory as a sudden jolt of pain hits his back, smacking across the spines as well, making the pain three times worse. Again and again, the man lays painful lash after painful lash across his back, some even hitting his tail and fins sending new jolts of pain up his spine, all the while the Beast is yelling at him in his strange language once again. He can't really tell what he is saying, only that the lashes are making his mind go black with pain. All that he can tell is that the man is angry that he did not do what the man wanted.

Finally, the man seemed to have had his fill with dealing blow after blow of pain on him, and drags him back into the tank. Without another word, the man walks out of his sight. Leaving him to trying and make sure the dirt water doesn't get into the gashes and wounds the man left on him. Once he hears the sound of something slamming shut, does he allow himself to release the tension that had built up behind his eyes. Rivers of tears flow down his face. He grabs onto his hair to try to stop the shaking of his hands, to find that most of his hair has become matted over the last month or so.

  
That night, he doesn't try to sleep. Afraid that the man would come back in the middle of the night. He learned when he was a small child to always keep his guard up; but how do you do that when there is nothing you can do to stop it.

So many times, he has heard others call him a monster.

Yet he has found the true monster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the weeks go one, the beatings becomes a regular thing. Every time, the Beast would make empty promises of clean water or more food, always asking him to beg for it; to give up whatever shreds of dignity he has left. And every time, he denies to give the Beast what he wants; no matter how much he needs the water and the food. He knows that the Beast would never give it to him anyways, so why grovel for something he'll never get?

After the first couple of days(nights? Weeks? He can't tell anymore) of the lashes, the man decides to try and get creative with how he breaks him. The Beast will cut into his flesh, deep enough to scar, but shallow enough to make sure he stays alive. His arms, his back, this fins and tail fin, the Beast cuts into it all; all the while growling out what he can only assume are insults about the scars he's making. It's not like he's never heard them, but this is different. The ones from before he wore with some pride; knowing that he got them while protecting himself, by showing his strength. But these……...these scars will show his weakness. These scars will show how he was weak enough to be caught and dehumanized by a monster that not even the great depths could create.

During one of these beatings, where he calls out names in disgust and sends waves of pain across his back, that another man he's never seen before comes into the cage telling something to the Beast, making him stop in his tormenting for the first time since he came down here. The Beast says something back and with a final kick, shoves him back into the tank. He tries to keep the open wounds out of the disgusting water, but he knows it's no use, having already gotten infections from the last time he cut into his flesh.

It was soon after this that for the first time, the Beast comes down and removes the chain from his tail; knowing full well that he won't be able to escape. He drags him out of the brown water where many of his scales float in the sickening sludge, and drags him back out into the brightness, making his flinch and instinctively shut his eyes from the sudden change. He's thrown into a different sort of tank, this one filled with clean water, and he immediately dunks his head underwater to get a full breath of air for the first time in what felt like forever. But what he breathed in instead was not clean water, it was something that burned his gills and throats and down into his lungs, making him burst it from the water coughing up whatever was left in his stomach.

He hears the Beast laughing again, and is pushed down back into the poisoned water. His head being held under by the Beast’s grip, and soon, he has to breathe in the noxious water once again, struggling to get his head above once again to try and breath, even if it's choppy and short, never really fills is lungs like it should, breathing through his nose would be so much better than breathing in this poison.

Finally the Beast relents and lets him lift his head from the water, graciously trying to get some sort of fresh air into his lungs to quell the burning. He tries to focus on what the Beast is doing, but with the brightness of the day and the noises and the still burning sensation in his lungs, he can only focus on not passing out from the over-stimulation on his senses. He feels something start to scrape against his armored plating, he tries to move away from it, but there is little to no space and he can hear the Beast grumble out a warning; and he pulls at one of his armored scales, making it feel like he would tear the entire thing off. So he stays still as he feels the scraping move all over his tail, removing loose scales and for once in his miserable time on the cage, he can feel all the grime leave his tail.

Soon the scraping tool is put aside and the Beast goes to washing his skin, although he can feel deep in his bones that the Beast has a reason for doing this, for actually treating him with some sort of humanity. The Beast quickly makes work of cleaning the grime and dried blood from his back, but not touching the open wounds or those that have gained infection in them. The stinging pain of when the Beast would hap-hazardly scrub harshly against his spines making him jolt away, only for the man to scrub even harder to remind him not to move. When the Beast finally stops his scrubbing, he can't help but breathe a sigh of relief, hoping that this is all over and that he'll be able to get out of the brightness.

But that hope is extinguished as he feels the man scrub something into his matted hair; practically scrubbing his scalp raw and pulling his hair out, and without any warning he's thrust back into water, whatever was scrubbed into his hair and all the dirt and grime that has built up in his hair floating about him, making the water murky with the deep red and brown of his blood and grime. And with just as much warning as last time, he’s pulled out of the noxious water and dropped on to the dry and rough floor once again. The Beast drags him to something he's never seen before, and he's tossed inside of it. Another wall being placed on top of the rough container, sealing him inside of it.

At least it was dark in here. No more being blinded by the brightness. But now, there is no water; clean or filthy. And very few cracks to allow air to filter in. All he's left to do is think. Think about how much of a fool he was for ever thinking that he would be able to see the above world. To learn from it. To see what so many others have seen. This world. Man’s world is a cruel and unforgiving one. At least back in the sea, others would leave him be. But here, they only care about causing pain and gaining control over anything they find. Intelligent or not. Man’s world is filled with lies and deceit. It's filled with harshness and cruel beings.

He doesn't know how long he was in the box. But he can tell when people began to lift him. Carrying him to something that won't stop vibrating and soon, those vibrations becomes shakes and quakes that he never felt before. Quick turns would cause his box to slide and hit walls. And by the time the shaking stops, he's sure he has some bruised spines and ribs. Once again, his box is lifted and carried until its haphazardly dropped onto something hard and unrelenting.

He doesn't know how he ever got sleep inside the cramped space, more cramped than the tank back in the cage. But he found himself awoken with a start as the brightness floods his eyes and he's taken out of the box and placed in a much larger tank, one with clean water. Finally after months of having to sit in disgusting filth and poisoned water or no water at all, being able to finally take a deep breath at last was a blessing. The fact that only having a bit more space and clear breathing is a blessing shows how little the Beast truly cared for him.

But it wasn't long before his tank is pushed back into brightness. But this one doesn't feel like the one that comes naturally with the day. This one feels fake and so much more intense. He tries to hide away from the fake brightness, trying to find a dark corner in the tank, but the light is everywhere, and he can't seem to escape its blinding gaze. He soon hears the Beast begin to speak in a loud and boisterous tone. But it doesn't seem like he's speaking to the merman. No, once he hears the audible gasps and murmurs that echo through around him. He realizes what is happening. He is being sold. He has heard from those who Passover his trench or who sit on the ledges of them talk of how some mermaids and mermans being captured and sold as pets to humans. He had hoped that they were only rumors, but deep down he knew this was what was going to happen when he was tossed in the cage. He always knew, he just didn't want to believe it.

Soon the noise becomes increasingly louder, humans yelling over one another, most likely trying to win him from the Beast to become their pet. He is no pet, never has been, never will be. He is a creature of the deep sea and any who even knew what he was would never try and tame him. But he couldn't even raise his hand or scream out, every part of him weak from malnutrition and cramped spaces. He couldn't even lift himself out of the tank, no matter how much he wish he could.

As time goes on, second by second, the amount of humans yelling dwindles, and soon all he could hear is the Beast calling out numbers at a fast past. From what he can gather, there are only two people still trying to win him. His hatred for the humans grow each time the number rises. Are humans so blinded by their greed for power and control that they would give almost anything to gain it? Can they not see that he is not some mindless animal? That he is not some sort of little fish that they can find entertainment from? Humans are as cruel as they are stupid. He hates everyone of them for what they've done to him. He hasn't been able to hear the ocean in so long, to feel its tides and currents. And now, one of the two who are still fighting for him will keep him locked away from his home forever.

He's snapped out of his thoughts when the Beast makes a loud authoritative bang, calling out something that he can barely understand. It seems that the fighting is over. He's been sold to the highest buyer. Now he'll never see home again. Now he'll be stuck as a human’s play thing for the rest of his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took quite a while for whichever human had bought him to come. After he was bought, he was rolled back into the comforting darkness and was forced to wait for the despicable human being to come and ‘claim’ him. He had tried to push on the top of the case, but it was sealed tight. No way to get out of his impending doom.

He sees someone walk up to his cage and kneel down to be face to face with him.

“Well, you better hope that you're worth all the money I spent on you.” It practically snarls out, tapping the glass harshly, the sound of it amplified by the water sending him into a frenzy, trying to get away from the sound, ultimately smacking face first into the clear wall of the tank.

He can hear the man laugh from the other side of the glass, as if he is nothing more than a mindless animal. Unfortunately before he is able to show this man exactly what he won, the man walks away, most likely looking to speak with the Beast.

He is forced to wait for several more hours, which he spends repeatedly trying to lift the top off of his cage, before his prison is moved into yet another box, locked up inside of it to keep the glass from breaking, and also not even a remote chance of escape.

He doesn't know how long he stayed in the utter darkness. But it is oddly soothing. For hours of being in too bright places, the pitch blackness is soothing on his eyes, the only light source in the entire box being his own dim bioluminescence, but even that doesn't seem to penetrate the darkness as much as it used to. The once spacious tank now feeling cramped and too small for him, keeping him from moving too much inside of it, either to make sure he can't get enough space to smash the glass with his tail, or for the humans twisted enjoyment of holding power over others, he honestly can't tell.

When he was finally taken from the box, he was relieved to know that they were inside some sort of structure. Although it didn't remove the light completely, it made it more bearable, but not by much. There were many people standing in front of his prison, though they look very different compared to the few humans he has seen. While he couldn't understand what they were saying, he could easily pick up that they thought of him as entertaining. They saw him as a unintelligent beast, a spectacle to see and make fun of, as if he can't tell what their saying. Which, to be frank, he can't. While many merpeople know the humans language, he never learned it having always been too deep to really need a way to talk to man. Only now, it may be the only thing he'll be able to hear for a long time. And he'll be damned if he's going to let these beasts talk about him without him knowing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day he's rudely awoken by two large men moving his tank from where it was left the night before. As he's sloshed from side to side, he can see that his tank was seemingly opened while he was asleep, most importantly, it wasn't closed properly. This might be his chance. He might be able to escape. But every chance he has at going for the opening, one of the men jostles the tank harsher than what was necessary, and throw him around in the water, farther away from his goal each time, until one last staggering shift and his tank is surrounded by some sort of metal. Only leaving one side of his prison open to world.

He wastes away in his cage for what he can only assume is the rest of the day. A few of the humans he saw the night before come by and take a look at him, enjoying the fact that he is stuck here. But soon, it wasn't the people he saw before, but complete strangers. So many that he can’t keep count of how many peer into his tank and look at him with either disgust or curiosity. Many of these humans are much smaller than the ones he's seen; most likely they're the offspring of humans. Others having hooks and other metals piercing their faces. And to think that Humans couldn't get anymore disturbing.

Many of them consistently hit the glass that is facing them, sending shock waves through the water that make his spines and senses go haywire  
And many times he swims straight into the glass, trying to get away from the overbearing tapping. His only makes them laugh at him, saying something in the language that he can only guess is an insult to his intelligence, before they walk away and another group of humans gather around his tank to gawk at him.

Finally after what may be hours of having to be constantly watched by hungry eyes, no one comes up to his tank. He can finally relax; well as relaxed as he can allow himself to be. He isn't going to take any chances and let his guard down completely. But after all he's gone through in the last couple of days, he is exhausted and starving. He didn't really get any food the night before, and he hates having to rely on these humans to be able to eat. So he waits, hoping someone will come with fish for him. Yet as more time passes, he hasn't seen anyone. Not one of the humans from before, nor the man the had bought him in the first place. No one comes. Don't they know that he needs food just like they do. Don't get realize that he's already starving from his time on the cage with the Beast? He waits for a few more hours, hoping that someone, anyone will come by and see he hasn't eaten. But the room that he's in is as barren as before. So he grudgingly lays down on the bottom of the tank, and try to sleep through the mind numbing hunger. the glass cold against his skin, helping him direct his thoughts to somewhere other than his empty stomach. Trying to find some kind of heat, he ends up curling his tail around himself for warmth,but it doesn't help much and soon he's shivering against the bottom once again. He tries to remember what the water around the underwater vents felt like, hoping that imagining warmth might just fool his body into believing it's warm. It doesn't work in helping him feel warm, but the memories of his home does help him fall into a restless sleep.

The weeks following was the same as the last; crowds of humans gawking at him for hours on end, talking about him as if he wasn't even there. On the bright side, if he could even call it that, it was the best way of learning their language. It was hard though, trying to hear through the glass to try and hear a single word, and the fact that every single human was talking at the same time, it was hard to hone in on one. It was slow progress, but it was some sort of progress nonetheless.

After the crowds would leave, he would sometimes see children that he assumed belonged to one of the people that work there. He has come to realize is another thing for humans to stare and murmur about as if they aren't even alive. He's heard a few humans call them ‘exhibits’ or ‘freaks’, while he doesn't understand the first word, the second one he knows, having been called that by many mermen and mermaids alike. He can never forgive the humans for capturing him and selling him, but he can't help but sympathize with the few humans that are in a similar situation as him.

These children were not like the full grown adults that mock him or call him a freak. They actually show him kindness. They would always wave a friendly hello, and would talk to him, not at him or about him, but TO him. Sometimes, they would bring something they called books and would read from them to him. While it was hard to hear all the words, it was one of the best ways for him to learn their language. They will even sometimes sound out some words for him. They even give him some of their food, if they're carrying any. That one act of kindness would usually be his only meal that he would have for days.

Many times, their parents would come with them, and while they don't show him the same kindness and acknowledgment as their children, they do give some, if only to please their guppies.

Regretfully, he seems to be accustomed to the Bright fake lights that hang above them. And while he should be glad that they no longer hurt his eyes, he can't help but hate it. He feels as if he is losing himself to these humans. He is not meant to be out in light, he is a midnight zone merman, a creature that should instill fear in his prey. He misses the darkness that he calls home. He misses the glowing lights of bioluminescent fish that mimic the stars he once craved to be able to see. Now all he wishes for is to be in that impenetrable darkness once again.

These people are truly ignorant of how to actually care for someone like him. These people, save for the children, never feed him. Let alone give him clean water regularly. They only really change out the water when it becomes too murky for anyone to see inside the tank at all. If he thought the cage, or what he believes humans call butts? bots? boots? boats! Thy call them boats. This place is ten times worse. Little to no food, having to be degraded on a daily basis to what he can only assume is hundreds of people, only there to mock him and make themselves feel more powerful. Having to try and sleep on freezing glass and just as freezing water. He may be used to colder waters, but he needs warmth just as much as any human does. He used to get that warmth by swimming down to the seafloor and lazily swim between the underwater vents. Now all he has is the freezing water that they refuse to clean out, chilling him to the bone with hatred.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today felt much different than the past couple of weeks(weeks? months? He isn't sure anymore). Today there are no insufferable crowds and mocking. Instead, it seems that many of the workers walking back and forth, carrying what he could assume as things from the other exhibits that were shown alongside him. Soon, he is taken from his own exhibit, and once again he’s tank is pushed into a crate. Sealing him in and left in the darkness that he's been missing for too long. He's not sure what is happening out there, only knowing that his crate is being moved around haphazardly, and when he's set down for the final time.

All he can do is sit there, starving and trying to stay warm. He suddenly feels something come to life below him, most likely whatever it is his crate was set on. “This might be what humans call a ‘car’.” He says to himself, trying to take his mind off the fact that last time he was on something like this, he was sold off to the highest bidder. For the first couple of hours, all he could do was worry about what was going to happen. If he was going to be sold off again to someone even worse.

But then he felt something crashing into his crate, making it tip over and settle on a different side. But what was worse was the unsettling CRACK that he heard. As soon as the box tip over and landed roughly on to another side, he felt something land into his water and heard something that sound like tinkling when those things landed on the bottom glass panel. Looking down he saw two very wrong things. There was a giant crack in both the glass and the crate, and his water was slowly leaking out. The other was that what had dropped into his water was shards of glass, most likely from another side of the tank, and they were laying quite hazardously on the bottom of his tank. He tries to stay as high as he can away from the broken glass. But he can only go so far and sooner or later he isn't going to have any water left. All he can do is hope that wherever they're going, it would be quick so someone can open his crate and he can get out.

But as the minutes trickle away with his water, his hope that someone would come and let him out dwindled as much as his water. He tries to flip onto his back, knowing that his armored plates will keep most of him safe from the shards. He folds his spines in, making them press as flat as they can against his spine, hoping that it will help keep them safe. Unfortunately it makes staying in such a odd position much more difficult, as with each quick turn the ‘car’ makes, the more he has trouble keeping his balance in the shallow water. He was not used to being on his back for long periods of time, and he will catch himself trying to roll over. As the last of his water dwindles and is nothing more than a puddle, he is forced to lay on the glass. He tries to keep his back and the lower part of his tail and find off the bottom, sitting precariously on his armor. He is able to keep the up for what he could only assume was a couple of minutes, maybe half an hour before his abdominal give out on him and he lands back and fins straight onto the glass shards. Many of them embedding themselves into his flesh, while others scrape along his dulled scales, leaving light cuts on areas where his scales still haven't grown back yet. A few of the shards puncture his fins, and while it's not like he hasn't had that happen before by predators, he can't easily remove them or else the glass will embed further into his back if he were to try and move. He can feel the glass shift and slice into his skin each time he tries to move, some of them so deep that he can feel the blood travel down his back before dropping off.

For hours he has to stay like this, cursing to himself each time the car makes a sudden move that makes him slide across the glass and embedding more into his back and tail fins. It's been weeks since he was able to see his bioluminescence, but now he's a little grateful that it's barely there, not wanting to see the state he was in, even in such low lighting.  
The vibrations from the car beneath him making it impossible for him to forget about even one shard. The fact that breathing became a whole lot harder did not help his situation at all. Every time he tries to take in a deep breathe of air, his back would move and dig the shards in deeper, leaving him to take quick and shallow breaths to try and get any sort of air into his lungs.

Finally, the car stops and with it the vibrations. He can almost sob at the fact that now someone will come and see the water that has come from his crate, and come and let him out of this god-awful tank. He hears muffled shouting from somewhere outside of the crate, and feels his crate being lifted and carried somewhere. As soon as his crate is set down, the top was pried off and he sees a few of the other humans standing over him, looking at him with pity. He tries to call out to them, but all he can muster is a strangled squeak that seems to get the others moving, taking off the lid of the tank and taking ahold of his arms. “No, wait are they going to-” his thoughts are cut off as the men begin to drag him across the glass, making some shards drag through his flesh, leaving lines of cuts spreading across his back. He couldn't hold back his screams, as his skin is sliced into slowly, and feeling the ones that were in his shoulders move with each pull from the men. His screams were hollow and bared all of his pain that has been building up for the past months, it could easily haunt anyone's dreams and bury its way into their bones.

As soon as he was fully out of the destroyed tank, the men lay him on his stomach giving his back a much needed break from the the overwhelming pain. He can hear them talking about around him, but he can barely focus on anything they're saying; the pain of hunger and of the rips in his skin over taking him. The last thing he sees before he passes out is one of the children that would visit him, looking at him with a look the speaks of realization, as well as horror.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he woke up, it was from pain. This was a different kind of pain though; instead of the pain in his stomach or from the glass digging into his skin, this was the pain of someone pulling out the glass, quickly and efficiently. But not with empathy or compassion. He tries to stay completely still, not wanting to cause the glass to embed further, but with each painfully yank to each sliver, it was harder and harder to not flinch or curl away from the pain. Yet each time he involuntarily flinched, whoever was pulling them out would either slap him on his burning skin or would simply rip more shards out, causing him to flinch again and again from the pain. Whoever it is travels down his back, and soon begins pulling them from his fins and tail. With an extra hard twist, the human removes a large piece of glass that had gotten between his armored plates.

“You are such a nuisance. Why did I ever think that you would be worth the price I had to pay. It would do me better to just sell you to some rich bloke and try and get the money back that you wasted.”

The man growls into his ear, pulling out another piece of glass with such anger that he was sure it did more damage than good for him. He can't keep back the strangled cry that escapes his mouth from the pain.

“I know how you can be useful to me. Not many people want to see some half dead merman, but if what Zarkon said is true, you are much more than some simple merman that anyone can get their hands on….”

Another wrench of a larger piece of glass; another choked off cry.

“You're supposedly some ‘big bad monster of the sea’ but how could a skinny, useless, good for nothing freak that couldn't even protect itself from getting caught be some ‘big bad’ of the deep. But if what Zarkon said is true, then I'm betting that you're good in a fight. But we’ll have see how you really do against an opponent.”

With that the man pulls out the last piece of glass from his tail. The cool air leaving a stinging feeling in his wounds. Each movement cause his muscles to groan and yell at him to stop moving, to let his body rest. But he can't. Not with what that man said to him. Was he really going to make him fight? As if he would ever fight for such a bastard.

The man comes back, rolling something over next to the table that he is laying on. And with a hard shove, he's falling into what appears to be a new tank. The crash into the water making his cuts burn even more, agitated by both the sudden movement and the sting from landing flat on his back onto the water’s surface. The water is as cold as ever and he can even see wisps of his blood from the cuts wave through the water like strings.

The man rolls the tank out of the small room they were in,and back out and into passages lined with walls that show off the other people who are exhibits in this hell hole. As they get to a wall with a large hole cut out of it, he knows that that hole is going to be his own little slice of agony here. The man calls over one of the workers and together they lift his tank and shove it into the hole, and while his tank is just big enough to have a small part of it peeking out from the wall, giving him a steady stream of fresh air, the walls surrounding the rest of his tank make everything feel so much smaller than what could be considered comfortable to anyone.

He doesn't know when he fell asleep, but the consistent tapping on the tank wakes him up from his dreamless slumber. He looks out to see that it was the young child from before. She is looking about nervously, before looking back up to him in his tank. One look around and he can tell that it was most likely the middle of the night, and from her constant shuffling and the way she continuously looks around, she shouldn't be up at this hour of the night. He notices that she's also holding something in her hands, hugging it close to her chest. He taps back to try and get her attention, and while his ears and spines don't care for that kind of treatment at all, it does what it's suppose as the girl whirls her head back to the tank.she gives a hesitant wave to him and a sad smile, something he has never seen a child bare. She holds up two almost blank books, one of them saying the in large lettering ‘yes’ and the other spelling ‘no’. In a hushed voice she says “ if you can understand me, point to the word yes.” He can honestly say that this was…….unexpected. Not a single person has actually asked him a question, let alone try to carry out a conversation with him. He points to the word ‘yes’ and he can see that she's also caught off guard by him answering her. She shakes off whatever shock she may have had and goes on to ask many other questions to which he replies by either pointing at the words yes and no.

“Have you always been able to understand us?”

Yes.

“Can you talk?”

He's not sure, so he points to no.

“But you've been listening to us”

Yes.

“Do you know where we are?”

No.

“We’re in a state called Nevada.”

He tilts his head to the side, mimicking what he's seen other humans do to show confusion.

“Yeah, I don't really know either, but that's what Mr.Sendak wanted so that's where we are.  
Did you used to live in the sea?”

Yes.

“Was it pretty?!”

He can't help but smile, probably the first one he's had in ages, at the girl’s excitement in her question.  
Yes.  
She can't help but giggle at his answer, although he doesn't know what is funny, he's glad he can hear some form of happiness. The child seems to fall silent though, and her eyes wander off and become distant, as if she can not find the right words. After what felt like hours but were only a few minutes of silence, she asks him another question.

“Did you choose to be here?”

The question caught him off guard, not expecting such a young child to sees what even the adults could never truly believe.  
With a grim expression, he heavily points to his answer.  
No.

“So you are here against your will?!”

Another heavy reply.  
Yes.

“It must make you really mad, huh?”

Yes.

Silence once again surrounds them, heavy and filled with harsh truths.

“Do you hate me?” She asks in such a small voice it was hard for him to hear it.

Did he hate her? She is a human, and by all means he had every right to be outraged. But he thinks back to all the times she and her friends would come by and visit him. Give him food and interact with him in ways no one ever has. He thinks of all the times they read to him and would talk about their days to him. These children had treated him with more respect and decency that no one has ever given him. This child is the only person to ever make an effort to really know him.

No. He doesn't hate her.

He sees her let out a sigh of relief, and is surprised to see how fast the mood around them changes with just one reply. They seem to stay away from any other questions about his predicament and continue asking simple questions to help keep the mood light and happy. She asks about the ocean more, and even if he has a favorite color or animal. While the conversation is kept simple to only yes or no answers, it was exhilarating to be able to talk with someone.

But like all good things, their time seems to have run out. Something begins to glow on her, as she grabs it and pulls it out of some sort of pouch on her side.  
“Ok, I gotta sneak back, so one more question and then i gotta get back to my mom’s trailer.  
Do you have a name?”

No.

This answer seems to shock her as much as when they first started. She even checks to make sure that she didn't mix up his answer.

“No? Are you sure?”

Yes.

“But why not! Everyone should have a name!”

All he can merely do to answer her is shake his head with a somber feeling.

“Well…….can I name you?”

Now it was his turn to be surprised by the question. She wants to name him? He might actually have a name to call himself by. A name to call his own.

“I mean, it's just not right for you to not have a name, everybody should have a name. And if you don't like it, we can keep looking for one that you like.”

Yes.  
Yes.Yes.Yes.

“Ok! So….um…...what about…...Jeffrey!”

He runs the name over in his head, and can't help but blanch at the thought of being called Jeffery.

No.

“Ok, um…...what about Jason? Or Monty? Maybe Chase?”

No. No. No. none of really sounded like him. None of them were something he wanted others to call him by for years to come.

“Oh! What about Lance! How about that?”

Huh. Lance. Lance. Yeah. That’s it! That's what he wants!

Yes. Yes. Yes!

She smile up at him, happy that she was able to give him something so important.

“Hi Lance! It's great to meet you!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that initial night, their conversations happen every few days. Sometimes, after all the crowds are gone, she will come by and bring all sorts of books and read to him, unknowingly helping Lance figure out human language. She also brings food with her as much as possible, helping to make sure that he gets something in his stomach to help curb the hunger that has taken permanent residence in his stomach. But they mostly hold their conversations at night; when no one can interrupt them. Their answering system always staying the same, yes and no’s, sometimes Lance would mimic what he has seen other humans do to answer questions; nodding or shaking his head, or shrugging his shoulders when he didn’t understand what the child had asked of him.

It was probably the only time Lance has ever smiled and laugh this much. Surprising, since last he checked, this place is still a living hell. But she makes it a little less bad.

For weeks they meet up like this, one of Lance’s favorite things is to try and figure out jokes that she tells him. It's a great way of learning some of their language, and they're always very funny to him, even if he doesn’t get the joke.

During one of their usual nightly meets, she brings up something that sinks any feeling of happiness or laughter.

“I heard Mr.Sendak talking over the phone. It sounded like he was talking about you. He said something about a fight coming up and that ‘his fish better be ready for it’. Is he going to make you fight, Lance?”

He can only lower his head down and point to the word ‘yes’.

“But...but I don't want you to fight! You could get really hurt! I don't want to see you get hurt! There's gotta be something we can do! Right?” Her voice cracks on the last word. Even though he is stuck in this tank surrounded by water, he could easily smell her tears as they travel down her face.

“I'm gonna find a way. I'll make sure you won’t fight.” And with some new found determination, she gathers up the papers that are covered in words and letters and wishes him a “good night” before running off. While he can appreciate her drive to make sure he is safe, he is not sure that she will be able to stop the fight like she thinks she can. All he can do is wait. It seems that that's all he ever does anymore, waiting around while others do as they please with him. And all he can ever do now is wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next couple of days were only filled with tension that Lance was sure even the crowds of people could feel. Every day was just a countdown to when sendak would come for him.

Many times the girl would come and visit him and tell him to not give up yet, that she was working on saving him from fighting. Her naive dedication could always bring a smile to his face. But he was not so naive. He knew how cold and dark the world can be. Deep down he knew that this fight would be a death match. He knows that one of these days, he might never seen this little girl again. But he could never bring himself to say goodbye every time she left. He didn't want to say goodbye to the only friend he's ever had. Even if she is a human.

For weeks, Lance is forced to stay in perpetual fear that each day may be the day. All the while, his little ‘friend’ says she is working hard to try and save him. Lance has learned to not take any human’s promise to heart, even if it's this young girl, so he merely smiles and nods hoping that it will make her believe he believes in her. He's lost any hope of being saved months ago, when he was on that boat with the Beast. He can't even tell how long he's been stuck in this living nightmare.  
Maybe this fight to the death will actually kill him, and he'll finally be free of the human's greed for power and control.

Then, one night after another godless day full of torment and hunger, he feels his tank being pulled out of the wall. Lance blearily lifts his head up to see what is happening. That's when a hand blinded into his tank and takes a harsh grip of his gills, dragging him out of the tank, his gills burning with the fingers that are lodged in there. Keeping his iron grip, Sendak drags Lance across the floor. Seconds feels like hours as the burning in his gills only gets worse and worse, and Lance is scared that Sendak will tear his gills with the force he's using to drag him. But he doesn't fear that for long, as Sendak throws him into some sort of box. But instead of the wooden ones that he's been tossed into before, this one was smooth and chilled him to the bone. The lid was shut as soon as he was thrown in, and he was trapped in the unbreakable darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next bing he knows, he's being dropped into bright tank. Too bright. It was like it was at the auction, the tank being surrounded by those lights. This tank was much larger, taking up the whole room. Everything felt wrong. The noises. The lights. Even the water. It all felt tainted and wrong.  
His spines picking up every ripple and disturbance as something else was dropped into the pool. The lights make it almost impossible to see anything, but he's able to pick up that it was large; probably another mermaid. Lance stalks around the pool, keeping to the edge as much as possible. Finally able to stretch out after months of being cooped up in those despicable tanks. Every instinct and muscle tense and on high alert.

He knows what going to happen, the only question is who's going to get out of this death pool alive.

Over all the insistent yelling from the humans, a large bang sounds, disrupting Lance’s concentration on his senses.

That's when the his opponent decided to strike.

As quick as a blue shark, his opponent strikes. Slamming Lance into the wall of the pool.

But his opponent didn’t come out of the attack unscathed; lance could smell of blood from other as he tried to dislodge his pectoral fin out from Lance’s armored plating.

Lance say his opportunity, and didn’t hesitate to take it.

As quick as he could, he spinned around and around, dragging his attacker with him as he spins erratically, making sure that his opponent hit the wall every time.

But soon enough his attacker frees himself from Lance’s plating and has started to understand that Lance isn’t one to be taken down lightly, even in his weakened and starved state. In fact, Lance and his opponent both know that that only makes him more dangerous.

Lance doesn’t wait around for the attack; instead taking the offensive. Following the ripples caused by his opponents movements, he easily pinpoints where to go. And while he may be at his weakest state, you wouldn’t be able to tell in the slightest. As fast as he can, Lance rams into his opponent, sinking his teeth into flesh. He can hear the hollowed cry his opponent makes, and can feel it thrashing about trying to dislodge him. That’s to be expected, but Lance isn’t letting go anytime soon, even while his prey scratches at his back, probably trying to get ahold of one of his spines as a way of making him let go.

What he didn’t expect was for the scratches and gouges that are being carved into his back to hurt this much. They felt like they were stinging. No. not stinging. Burning! Its burning him from the inside out! Every rip into his flesh, his scales, his fins, his tail, even into his armor. It all burns too much.

Lance lets go with a howl, trying to back away from the other, as way of gaining time to submerge his pain until he beat this creature. But his attacker didn’t let up. As soon as Lance let him go, the other immediately latched onto him with his talons, the burning burying deep into Lance’s skin, lighting it aflame. No matter how much distance he put between himself and where his opponent was, he would find himself in his claws again and again. The burning no longer just burrowing into his skin, but settling into his bones. He could smell his own blood drifting through the water, washing whatever common sense he tried to hold on to.

He had to fight.

He had to win.

He had to survive this.

He had to see his oceans again.

No matter what.

With the last of his strength, he throws his attacker off, but it’s not long until his opponent is back, slamming him into the wall again and again. With each crash into the wall, he can feel the breaking of bones and feel the pain radiate farther and farther across his body.

It’s hard to see anything clearly, everything muddled and foggy. But his senses are still on high alert, he can sense the other swimming in for another strike. Lance doesn’t hesitate to sink his teeth back into the prey. It didn’t matter what it did, Lance merely teared into the raw flesh, digging his own claw marks into the prey’s tail. Nothing else matter except surviving.

He doesn’t hear the crowd above them anymore. he doesn’t sense the heady lights that show all the blood spilled between the two. He doesn’t even feel his own loss of blood. All he feels is the pulse of his prey between his jaws. He feels it quicken with adrenaline, even as it’s own wounds cease to stop bleeding. He feels how much his prey struggles to free itself from his grip.

He feels the instant change in mood in the room. No longer does he feel the constant thrum of excitement and blood lust, instead all he feels is panic. His prey stops moving, it seems Lance isn’t the only one who feels the change. Lance releases his grip on the other, and takes the chance to open his eyes. The light immediately harasses them, but he persists, and he is able to see that something is happening up on the surface. Other people have arrived. But these people don’t look like the ones Lance has ever seen. These people are wearing some sort of jacket, holding some type of weapon, yelling out orders to everyone else. While some do as they say, others try to fight back, only for loud bangs to occur and soon enough, they too are lying on the ground.

It’s only now that Lance really feels the blood loss hit him, whatever energy he had before spilling between his fingers into the endless water of blue and red. He’s not sure how, but he finds himself laying on the bottom of the pool, the other merman laying beside him in what Lance can only assume is their death bed. He can barely hear whatever is happening above them. He can barely tell when he’s getting a full breath of air. The burning from before now slowly swallowing him whole, every sense being overpowered by the pain and by the constant burning. The last thing he knows for certain before he blacks out from it all, is that someone enters the pool and is swimming down to him. Reaching out to him.  
Then nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything comes and goes. One moment he’s laying at the bottom of what he thought would be his deathbed, and the next, he’s not sure where he is at all. Everything is muddled and fuzzy and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t focus on any single voice that float around him. All he can catch are odds and ends of sentences.

“- get the --- he needs fluids now!”

“Doc----- antidote, it’s in the cab-”

“My god, did they even --------- he’s almost skin and bones.”

“Don’t---right now he needs------where is----”

Everything just muddles together, all the voices talking over each other, his head throbbing with the overbearing smell of harsh alcohol. He can feel something poking in his arm, a coldness washing over him from that point. Lance fights and fights to stay awake. He can’t trust humans. They might do something even worse if he falls asleep. But no matter how much he tries to fight it, he still slips into a soundless slumber.  
Maybe, he won’t wake up this time. Maybe this is where he can finally die and get some rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
He can feel the slight shift of clean water across his gills.

He doesn’t hear much of anything, which he gladly appreciates. He’s not sure he wants to be put out on display today. Not after yesterday. He just wants to sleep. Even in the tight tank.

Wait.

This tank isn’t small like the one that sendak makes him live in.

He gingerly moves tail from side to side, just waiting to hitting any sort of wall. But there’s nothing. Is he still in that pool? Was he just left for dead? He sniffs the water, but it’s all clear. Not a single drop of blood. Okay. now he’s confused. Where is he?

Hesitantly, Lance crack one eye open, ready for the blaring lights. But instead. His eyes meet very dim lights, most of them admitting a strange colored light, but it doesn’t hurt at all. It’s actually very calming and gentle on his eyes. Lance looks around, while his eyes are still making some things seem much foggier than they should be, he can at least tell that he is in some sort of tank, but much much larger than any of the ones he’s seen before, even bigger than the pool.

Lance tries to swim around, get his bearings and figure out what’s going on, but he immediately regrets the decision, as his body protests against moving at all, the injuries he’s suffered from the fight pulling and forcing him to lay back down on the warm sand. He tries to move again, even just to stretch out, but he doesn’t get very far until he has to stop to let his aching body rest. At least it not the cold glass he had to sleep on for months when sendak owned him. Lance manages to sweep his tail fin under the warm sand, letting it rest in the warmth that he’s been craving for so long. He tries to wiggle more of himself under the sand, but with his wounds screaming at him with every twist and turn, he’s only to get a bit more of his tail under it before he has to stop. He’s not sure when he fell back asleep, but it’s the most peaceful sleep he’s had in a very long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Lance reawoke, it was to the smell of something he hasn’t had since his capture.

Food.

Even with the injuries and the ache in his bones, he rushed over to the source of the smell, and low and behold, it was the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a long time.

Food. a pile of it. He can smell the freshness of it. It was mouth watering.

It took everything in him to not dig in and finally eat something that isn’t just scrapes or human made.

He sniffs it a couple of times and man does it smell so good, maybe one bite wouldn’t hurt- no he had to make sure that it was safe, he couldn’t smell anything chemical or dangerous. And it looked as fresh as it smelled. But someone had to put this in here, and there is no one else in this tank with him. It had to be put here by a human.

Cautiously, Lance picks up one of the fish, sniffing it a few more times up close. He still didn’t smell anything hinky with it, but Lance is still not going to be careless with it.

He carefully pulls off a small chunk of the raw fish, and after checking to see if there was anything physically wrong and seeing nothing to prove that the fish was tainted, he slides the piece of food into his mouth. Each movement of his jaw slow and precise, waiting for something, anything, to taste wrong or react as he chewed.

But all he tasted was the sweet taste of a fresh kill.

He did this with every bite, making sure that nothing was wrong with anything. So enough he finished off the first fish, and was working on the the next one. Always making sure he took small bites, and chewing slow to make sure that he wasn’t going to be poisoned or worse by anything.

It took him while to even get through a quarter of the pile, and by then he was stuffed. He slowly picked himself up and swam away from the pile, not wanting to over do it and make a mistake that could cost him his life. At the least cost him his lunch.

Now that he’s more aware of his surroundings, Lance sees that there are all types of plants in this tank, as well as some sort of rock formations strewn about, the most noticeable one was a large wall of rock with holes all about it. Lance slowly drifts over to the wall of holes, and after a couple of tries, he finally makes it to the lowest hole. It turns out that they aren’t just holes, but rather tunnels, connecting to one another throughout the wall.

It reminds him of all the caves and tunnels that he would rest in when he was just a guppy, he remembers the glowing algae that would lull him into a sense of security and arm when ever he slept in those tunnels. He remembers the small fish that would whiz by him with flashing colors of bioluminescence. He misses it. It’s been a long time since he’s slept in those tunnels or cave systems. He hasn’t had a need to use them for years, but right now in this moment, he misses them dearly.

Lance sits down and starts to take stock of his injuries to keep his mind from wandering too far from his present situation. But as he checks over each area that he knows he’s opponent had carved gouges in, he sees that each injury has been treated and is already healing nicely, even though they still hurt like hell. He stretches out his spines fully, something he hasn’t been able to do for months, and the pain was much more apparent there, but still not as bad as he thought they would be after that fight. Curiously Lance presses where he’s sure that he cracked a rib or two, and while he still gets that stinging ache from before, they don’t nearly hurt as much as they should be. He did have his fight yesterday. Right? If not……...how long has he been out of it? How long has he actually been here? Wherever here is. He’s still not sure where he is, but he knows that it’s at least better than where he was.

For now anyways.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
This continues on for days.  
Lance will sleep most of the days and nights, and whenever he wakes up there’s always fresh food waiting for him when he does wake up. It’s never the same food from the day before. No matter how many times the food doesn’t hurt him, he knows better than to fully trust humans. Each time there is fresh food, Lance is practically paranoid about the food that is always left for him. Making sure that it isn’t tampered in any way.even though every time, it’s completely safe. Lance can only stomach so much.

Whenever he has his fill of the food, he’ll work on getting his strength back. Either working on climbing through the tunnels or swimming back and forth. It’s hard on his unused muscles, and he doesn’t usually get very far before he has to stop and give his body a break, But it’s the best he can give. He doesn’t want to push his body too fast or too hard and worsen his physical state.

The only other thing he finds any sort of entertainment is trying to catch the human who always leaves the food. But no matter what, he always falls asleep before he sees any human at all in his waters. Its aggravating, to say the least. To know that someone is coming and going as they please, but never able to catch them in the act. But these past couple of days, Lance has been getting some strength back, and he’s able to stay awake longer than he could the first couple of days. He’s not going to let this human haunt his waters anymore. Not until he knows what exactly he’s dealing with here.

That night, Lance curled up in one of the lower holes in the rock wall, lying in such a way that he could easily look out of the hole without making it obvious that he was awake. He knows for certain the human only comes in when Lance is asleep, so he’ll appear to be sleeping when really he’s aware of anything that will come into the water.

For hours he stays like this. Waiting, watching, senses and spines on high alert for any change or disturbance in the water. But as the hours continue on, the harder it is to keep from falling off into slumber. Each time he catches himself starting to nod off, he tries to shift his position as minutely as possible to ensure that he doesn’t tip off the human. Another hour passes and Lance is barely fighting off his exhaustion from the day, with each minute it becomes harder and harder to keep his eyes open, to keep his senses on focusing on the water than his own exhaustion.

Then. he senses something entering the water.

He was lucky he caught it in the first place, from how muddled his senses are with sleep and the fact that it entered so subtly, he almost missed it. Lance tries to fight back against his tired mind, hoping to just be able to see what this human looks like before sleep finally claims his mind and eyes. It’s hard, everything foggy and swirling together. But he’s able to make out a shape. A human shape. But something’s wrong with this one. It looks off from all the other humans that he’s had to watch for months on end. It might be his sleep-deprived muddled mind. But it looks as if this human is missing an arm. But he unfortunately can’t watch any more, as sleep finally drags him away from reality and the one armed man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Much to Lance’s disappointment, this human played this ‘game’ with him every day since.

Lance would pretend to sleep for hours, waiting for the human to enter his waters, making himself exhausted to the point of fighting off his sleep hazed mind to always just catch the smallest glimpse of his mystery one armed human. And every morning, a fresh pile of food awaits him. It was tantalizing and aggravating, to say the least. To only catch a tiny glimpse of some human who thinks that he can own Lance, that he can just do what he wants in Lance’s water. Lance is just done with humans thinking they can just do whatever they want without any repercussions. Well Lance is ready to prove them wrong, to let them know that he isn’t going to be pliant and do what they want. Not anymore. And now that he’s regained some of his strength, he can finally give these humans a really piece of his mind.

That following night, Lance played along to the ‘game’ as usual, laying in his regular hide away, keeping his senses as sharp as he can and his eyes open as always. What is different this time around though is that he had already slept that day, making sure that he wouldn’t fall victim to his sleep ridden mind this time around. As the hours ticked by, Lance kept a stern eye on the surface of the water, watching. Waiting. Just like he used to when he hunted larger prey back in his trenches that he misses so much. Those memories are what keep him completely focused on his plan. He won’t let these humans have their way with him anymore. Not if he can help it. He may not be fully healed, let alone have his full strength back, but he has enough to at least prove a point to these humans that he is not to be taken lightly at all, and if they believe that they are safe in his waters, they have another thing coming.

He sees something enter the water, and Lance subconsciously tenses at the sight of the human. As it swims deeper into his waters, Lance slides out from his hiding spot, keeping close to the ground and staying in the seaweed to hide his moving form from the Human’s sight. As he gets closer and closer to the human, he notices something different about this person than the one that he’s seen countless times before; this human is smaller than the other, this human also has two arms. This isn’t the one that usually enters his waters. But that doesn’t mean much to Lance at the moment, as long as his message got across, he didn’t care which arrogant human is in his tank. Lance slithers close and closer, his muscles coiling to their limit, just waiting for the right moment to strike. He can practically feel his bioluminescence burning at their brightest, the anticipation running through his veins. The human sinks closer and closer to Lance’s hiding spot, completely unaware of the danger that they have put themselves in.

Lance doesn’t hesitate.

He shoots up from the greenery, every glowing a hauntingly blue glow that frames every plate just so to show them as sharp as possible, his claws and teeth on full display, an Lance lets out a call that would make any predator flee from him. And just as many sharks or squid that have heard his call of death, this human scrambles and flails to escape him, and even with the odd mask covering their face, Lance can taste the salty tears that flow from their eyes. He chases them higher and higher, weaving his body to make it appear larger and more agile than he is. Until the human breaches the top and struggles to get out completely. As one last warning, he takes hold of the human’s foot and pulls down, ripping the odd flesh to reveal another layer, this seems to do the trick as he can hear above him a shrill scream and the human’s foot is wrenched out of the water. Lance can’t help but laugh at how well his plan worked! He circles around the surface of the water for a couple more minutes, making sure that his spines breach the water every so often, before finally feeling his muscles ache from the strain that he put on them. He swims back down into on the warm sand, enjoying himself and the warmth that seep into his scales from the sand. He makes his way back into his wall of tunnels and picks a hole close to the ground. He lays down into the tunnel, his tail sticking out from it and burying itself into the heated sand. That night, Lance dreams of being free from tanks and humans and being back out into the sea, free of everything that walks on the Earth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Plop’

‘Plop’

‘Plop’

Plop Plop’

That is the sound that Lance awoke to that morning, something repetitively dropping into his tank rippling the water as well as Lance’s nerves. He begrudgingly leaves the warm confines of his tunnel and the sand, flicking his tail a copious amount of times to dislodge any sand that had settled into the groves of his scales. He looks around and doesn’t see the usual pile of food that’s always been there since he’s been here. Instead, he sees a sporadic scattering of fish, strewn about the sand.

‘Plop’

Another fish slowly sinks from the surface, moving around in the silent currents until it lands onto the sands, joining the others that litter the ground. Lance looks back up to the surface where another fish is thrown into his waters with a resounding ‘plop’. Lance glides up to the surface, wondering what was going on. His head was about to breach the water, when a fish smacks him right on his face. Lance breaches the water, fish in hand and looks around trying to figure out where the fish were coming from. Another plop behind makes Lance spin around and look up to some sort of floating walkway that crosses over the tank; and standing on it was a very large human, with a bucket right by his feet, most likely where the fish is coming from, in his left hand another fish is slightly swinging from left to right.

“Hiya.” the human called out, doing a slight wave with his free hand, though it was very stiff from how his other hand still swung the fish effortlessly. Lance scowls at the human man, who is obviously enjoying himself. “ you know, you really scared our intern yesterday. Poor girl pretty much cried bloody murder.” the man says, throwing the fish straight at Lance, who easily catches it in his hand, and without any hesitation threw it right back at him, the fish ending up a few feet short of the walkway. ‘Stupid weak arms’ Lance thinks to himself, glaring at the human as he seems to cuckle at Lance’s attempt at hitting him. “It seems like you’ve already started building back up your muscle mass and your strength, if yesterday is to go by anything. That’s good; that means that you’ve been eating, albeit, not very much considering how much is left when I come down to give you your daily feed. But it’s some progress.” the man rambles on, continually tossing fish after fish at Lance, who angry throws them back, each time the error gap getting wider and wider the more tired his arm becomes. Who knew tossing fish at some cocky Human could be exhausting. After a while, lance became bored of the ‘game’, and it seems that the Human ran out of fish to toss. The man seems to be satisfied when he ran out of fish, happily putting the bucket to the side. He sits down on the walkway, making his legs much more accessible to latch on to. Lance hesitantly swims closer, if only to keep a much more watchful eye on this strange human.  
“ you’re not much of a talker are you?” the human asks, the question obviously not needing to be answered, but still getting a hesitant nod from lance.  
“That’s okay. I don’t blame you for being nervous or being cautious. Heck, i don’t even blame you for trying to scare Amelia out of the tank, even though she probably thinks differently. You went through something traumatic and you were hurt because of those men, and while i can’t completely undo all the damage they have caused you, i promise that they will never get their hands on you again, and as soon as you have been cleared and have a complete bill of health we’ll get you back out in the sea where you belong.”

Wait.

Does this man mean that….he’ll be able to be free. He has to be pulling on his tail fins. He has to. He can’t be serious. He can’t be. Will he really be able to be back in his world again? Back in his trenches and his sunken ships and his darkness? Lance wants to believe him. He really does. But after everything that humans have done to him? after every terrible, humiliating, degrading thing that these humans have made him gone through for months on ends, Lance just can’t take that chance. He can’t put his trust so blindly in a human. He can’t. Not yet.

Not yet.  
  
The human left soon after, promising to be back the next day, saying that he’ll bring some “toys” with him for Lance, the mane wished him a good day,and that was it. The Human walks off and leaves Lance questioning everything that he said to him, making his once rock solid decision about Humans shift the slightest bit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True to his word, the man came back the next day, carrying both the bucket and some odd hoops.  
“Hey. looks like you were expecting me today.”

Lance merely glares at the man, only wanting to get his food and be left alone. But it seems that the human has other plans instead. He once again sits down on the edge of the walkway and sera down the bucket next to him.

“So I brought your daily food, as well as something that I think will help you feel more comfortable here.” The man holds up the hoops in an non aggressive action. Well as non aggressive as humans can get. “These are pool toys. They're more for kids but i think it will help at least get you more used to me and maybe if you're up to it, some of the other staff here.” The man holds one of the larger hoops down close to the water for Lance to see it. He cautiously moves closer to make sure that everything is as harmless as it looks, but still making sure he isn't close enough for the human to grab him by his gills. Lance even sniffs it to make sure that there isn't anything on it that could hurt him, but it seems all good. Just a regular toy.

“You can take it if you want.”

The man's voice catches him off guard with how smooth and gentle it is, not at all how he's heard so many refer to him before. The only person who ever talked like that to Lance was the young girl that gave him his name. Lance never expected for a grown man to ever be able to sound so calm and tender to anyone, especially to Lance.

Lance is hesitant at first, but he slowly reaches out for the ring, all the while the human sits perfectly still and docile, letting Lance take his time to take the water toy from him. That is until a door slams open from somewhere, startling Lance to dive back down into the depths of his tank, away from the loud and angry humans. He can't believe he actually trusted one of them, let alone try to take something from a human’s hand. It was foolish of him to think that some man could be friendly...foolish.

Lance swam in circles, berating himself for trying to get so close to them. That's when he heard a small ‘plunk’ sound above him, Lance swims off and burrows into one of the tunnels, not wanting to see whatever it was that the man had thrown into the water. But much against his better judgement, Lance eventually peaks out of the tunnel to see what it was that was dropped into his water.

It was the toy from before.

  
Lance slowly makes his way out of the tunnel, making sure that no one is following after it into his territory. Once he makes it to the hoop he hears another ‘plunk’, he looks up to see a fish drifting down from above.

‘So you want to do this again, huh?’ lance ponders to himself. But this time, they’re gonna do this his way. Lance takes the toy and swims to just below the surface, making sure that he didn’t break it with one of his spines. He doesn’t have to wait long for the man to see him circling the expanse of the tank. He calls out, still in that gentle and caring tone, “hey, I’m sorry about before, I thought I told everyone that they had to be quiet in here, but it seems that not everyone got the memo. It won’t happen again, I swear. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lance didn’t waste a second, shooting up from just in front of the human and sprayed him with water.  
“Aaughhah!” the man called out as he was ambushed with the wave of water drenching him from head to toe.

Lance couldn’t help but let out a cackle at the sight before him. The human standing, sopping wet and obviously very disgruntled about it.

“Haha. very funny.” the human deadpans, shaking his arms to try and shake some of the water off of him, to no avail. “You must be very proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Lance gives him a sly grin, something he’s seen from far too many people for all the wrong reasons. But he wants to try and change the meaning behind that smile. At least change it for himself. The man suddenly bursts out laughing, startling Lance out of his head to hear something so joyous, so...childlike come from such an imposing being. It makes Lance think that maybe. Just maybe he might be able to change the meaning of so much more than just a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The meetings don’t happen everyday, but Lance is starting to enjoy whenever the man comes around. He always brings interesting things for Lance to muse over, many of them now stay in his tunnels to keep away from sight. He would hate it if anyone found out how much the small rings or glowing sticks help him feel a little more at home and comfortable in his surroundings. Surprisingly enough, even with how much the man comes by, Lance hasn’t seen him once get into the water. Not that Lance exactly wants him to either, he very much likes being able to call this his territory and he’s not very open to letting any humans back into it anytime soon. Hopefully though, that man wasn’t lying to him about letting him go free soon. He misses his open oceans and dark caverns and ravines. He misses his home. Not that he could ever really call it that, but it's the closest thing he has to a home, and he doesn't want to give up his dreams of finally returning to it.

He’s awoken from his dreams of the dark trenches he calls home from the now all too familiar ‘ploop’ of one of the toy rings sinking into the water, letting Lance know that the man was there with his usual food and probably some new human thing that he wants to show or give to him. Lance takes his time stretching out, enjoying how he's slowly gaining back his strength and agility. It's still a rough process, and more times than not Lance will push himself too far. But to be able to have more control over his body than what he's had in months, maybe even a year, it's the best feeling in the world. He floats over to the toy and sees something tied to it. Curious about it, Lance unties the object and tries to get a better look at it. It looks to be some sort of bracelet, spelling out a word in human language in tiny blocks on it. Lance looks at it very confused, swimming up towards the surface to see if the human has any sort of explanation as to what it might say.

As he breaches the surface, he hears not just one but two sets voices cutting off some sort of conversation. Lance doesn't like this, this feels too much like before with Sendak. He doesn't want that again. Not again, please not again. Lance swims away from the walkway, keeping a large distance between himself and the humans, not wanting to get too close just in case. The familiar man turns around and lowers himself to be more on Lance’s level, still making sure that he doesn't enter the water. He keeps his voice low and soothing, just like he always does, saying “hey, don't worry. No one is going to hurt you, no is going to touch you if you don't want them to, I promise. You've been getting a visitor for awhile, and I thought that you might like to meet them. If you don't want to, just shake your head and I'll send them away. It's up to you, okay?”

Lance can't help but be skeptical of it all. He doesn't want to be out on display for despicable people to see. Have they been letting people watch him without him knowing? They couldn't have, Lance would have known, it's not like the glass is hiding them from him. So how does anyone know that he's here. Let alone want to see him. He doesn't have anyone who he wants to see. Well, almost anyone. The only person who ever cared that much about him was-

“LANCE!!!”

The girl from before slips her way around the man and gives Lance a huge smile, one that he can't help but return, feeling much more relaxed now knowing that it was only the young girl from when he was owned by Sendak. She kneels down and waves to to come closer. Lance drifts closer, happy to see that his little friend is healthy and well. And she seems happy to see that lance is doing much better.

“Did you get my gift? I made it myself! Well, my mom helped, but i hope you like it!” she’s beams, obviously very proud of herself. Lance lifts the bracelet out of the water, the silent question of “ do you mean this?” implied by the action. “ yeah! Do you like it? Here,” she holds her hand out for the bracelet, wanting to show him something about it. Lance complies handing it over to which she straightens it out and points to the human word “ this right here is your name, so now you can always have something with your name on it!” lance looks at the small object in wonder. So that was his name on it, it was something that he owned, and the proof was right there in writing. Or well, in beads, but the fact that it has his name on it. It was something Lance never really thought of before, since he never really had a name before now, but to be able to look at this small gift and know that it was his, to know that he would always have his name with him, was like being able to hold the stars in his hands. He carefully takes back the bracelet and works to tie it onto his wrist, but unfortunately, it was just too small for his wrist. Lance tries to think of how to put it on himself, not wanting to let it go of the gift.

Lance brightens up as he gets an idea, he plunges back down into the water and swim down until he reaches the sand bed. He lays out along the warm sand and with sore and displeased muscles, arches his tail to where he an reach the end of the tail ends and the tail fin begins. As quickly as he can he ties the bracelet just above his tailfin. and lets his tail fall back down onto the sand, kicking up a cloud of sand and silt. He moves his tail back and forth to make sure the bracelet won’t come off easily, and once he is sure he swims back up to the surface to show off his genius. As he reaches the walkway, he sees that the man has gotten closer to the edge as well, most likely making sure that Lance was alright and uninjured. He proudly lifts his tail out of the water, trying to keep his balance while trying to show off the jewelry.

“It looks great on you Lance! I’m glad you like it!” the girl exclaims, laughing along with Lance, enjoying the moment together. The man leans down and places a stiff hand on the girl shoulder “there’s something else you wanted to tell him, right?”  
“Oh yeah! Thank you Mr. Shiro for reminding me! Mr. Sendak is locked up in jail, so you don’t ever have to worry about him ever again!” Lance looks at the two of them, relief flooding through his mind and relaxing the tension that he didn’t even know he had. Lance smiles at the news and swims closer to the walkway, and places both of his hands onto the ledge of it. With as much strength as he can, Lance lifts himself up out of the water just high enough to rest his forehead and nose against his young friend. He’s seen many mermaids and men do this to their young ones and friends. Lance knows that it is a sign of trust and of friendship, sometimes used as a greeting or as a way of thanks. He’s never had the chance to do it himself, but this is the only way he knows how to express his gratitude to her. For everything. He’s not sure how, but he knows that him being saved, of having that chance to go back home. Its thanks to her.

“Hahahaha, stop! you’re gonna get me all wet!” she laughs out, but doesn’t pull away from the touch. Lance is the one who pulls back first, his arms screaming at him to stop. He slips back into the water and watches as his friend continues to laugh as she wipes off the droplets of water from her hair and nose. “ it was really great seeing you again Lance, mom and i have to go soon though, today’s my first day of school! I’ll try and visit you soon, okay?” lance nods his head, not exactly sure what a ‘school’ is, but if she’s excited to do it, Lance wishes her the best. She waves goodbye, to which Lance copies as she walks down the walkway, wishing him luck in his recovery. Lance doesn’t stop waving until he hears the sound of the door closing.

“I’m glad that you enjoyed yourself. That’s the most trust you’ve given anyone since you’ve been here.”

Lance startles out of watching the door and back to the ma-no. Shiro. His friend called him Shiro. Lance realizes how close they are, closer than Lance has ever gotten to the human, and he really takes a look at the human. There’s definitely a lot of differences about him from all the other humans he’s seen. Like the scar across his face, and the white tuft of hair. Lance’s has never seen that on a human before. And then there’s his arm. Lance doesn't know what, but something just off about it. How Shiro treats it and how he moves it and uses it. It all just seems stiff and hard. It’s strange. But he also see’s how Shiro’s eyes seem to just reflect the water so clearly, how they gleam with curiosity and wonder. Not like he’s seen on so many others who viewed him from behind a glass wall,not with disgust or mockery. Shiro’s eyes show that of respect and something else. Something Lance isn’t quite sure what to call, something that he’s sure countless other mermaids have seen before. They probably have a word for it. But Lance just doesn’t know what else Shiro’s eyes are trying to tell him. At least not yet.

“There’s something i need to talk to you about, okay?” Shiro states, suddenly very serious.

Lance snaps out of his thoughts and looks up at Shiro, any mood of fun or laughter dying away.

“Tomorrow i need to do a analysis on how you're progressing in your rehabilitation.”

Lance cocks his head to the side, not exactly sure what all the words meant, Shiro catches on and simplifies what he said “i need to do a check up on you. Make sure you’re healing right. But for that you either need to let us move you into the medical building to do it,” Shiro gives him a pause to let the information sink in, “ or you let me and an assistant come into your tank and do the check up there.” Lance blanched at the idea of letting humans into his tank again. He physically moves away from the steel path, showing his disgust in doing so. “ it’s your choice, but I need to make sure you’re healing properly. I know you’re not happy about it, and i get that you don’t want us entering your territory. But it’s either that or moving you to another building to do the analysis, and im pretty sure you don’t want that either. I’ll come back around later today to get your answer.” Shiro dumps the bucket of fish that Lance hadn’t even noticed into the water, and giving Lance one last reassuring smile, he walks out the same way as his friend had. Leaving Lance alone with his thoughts about what would be happening the next day. Either Lance has to spend possibly hours out of water again,or he lets these humans into his domain. Either way, Lance isn’t going to be happy. But he has the feeling that he doesn’t have much of a choice either way. He’ll have to pick one or the other. He’d rather not doing it at all, but if it means getting back to the sea sooner, he’s going to have to do one of them, unfortunately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the end, Lance reluctantly decided to let the humans in his tank, rather wanting to be in a familiar place than out of water for who knows how long. Although, that doesn't mean that he has to like it. He's still not over the one armed man thinking he could come and go as he pleases, who mysteriously has disappeared, not that Lance is complaining though.

The next morning, Lance is waiting up at the surface for Shiro when he hears the door open and close, and two people are walking in. The first, Shiro, but the other isn't someone Lance has seen before. This was another man, but looks a bit younger than Shiro. But also larger in form and looks just as strong, if not stronger than Shiro.he’s also much darker skin than Shiro as well, LAnce remembers seeing a few humans with much darker skin than others, but he’s never really seen one up close like this. He seems to be hiding behind Shiro somewhat, but Lance isn’t going to be fooled so easily, no matter how much the other acts nervous. Lance stalks the two men, as they make their way across the platform, not letting them leave his sight for a moment. Just because he chose they come into his tank doesn't mean that he has to be so carefree about someone new. He wasn't going to let them think that they can come and go as they want into his tank.

Shiro gives a sweet smile and a wave of his hand towards Lance, who does his best to not let the good natured and charming air around him to dissuade him from staying on high alert. He watches as each one of them change into some sort of clothing. And that’s when he sees it. Shiro’s arm. It’s not made of flesh like the rest of him, but of metal. Lance watches as Shiro takes the arm off with a well practiced hand. He sets down the metal arm and slip into the rest of his suit, tying off one of the arms, and if that doesn’t remind Lance of that mysterious human from before, than Lance would be as blind as an angler. Shiro was the one armed man from before. Lance can’t really figure out if that is good or bad, already confused about way too much about the man. Lance doesn’t have a lot of time to contemplate about the realization as he sees that Shiro and the other human are making their way towards Lance.

“Lance, this is my colleague Hunk. He’s going to be helping me out. Don’t worry, he may seem big but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” lance doesn’t really know why that has anything to do with anything happening now, but he’ll be keeping his eyes on both of them during their time in his tank, no matter what weird things they say. Hunk shyly waves at Lance, to which Lance merely lets out a huff of air, merely giving the humans space to come in. they go back and grab two packs and slip them on along with some sort of mask that covers their face. They give each other thumbs up, and Shiro even turns towards Lance, giving him one as well, and while Lance can’t see it, he bets that Shiro is giving him that same smile from before. They slip some sort of mockery of flippers onto their feet and waddle over to the edge of the platform. Shiro is the first to go into the water, and Lance naturally flares up both fins and spines, not exactly comfortable that the same man that once was a ghost in his waters in back again, but Shiro waits until Lance gets it out of his system and calms down a bit before going any farther into the water. His friend soon follows, making much larger ripples in the water, making Lance much more at ease, oddly. He’s larger than Shiro, so he’ll be easier to track. Once both are completely submerged, Lance follows them below the surface and circles them lazily, letting them silently know that he’s watching them. Shiro waves over Lance, most likely to start the exam. Good. Lance just wants to get it over and done with and get these humans out of his tank.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The check up itself goes by much quicker than Lance thought it would be. Shiro had done the worst part of it first; drawing blood. Lance wasn’t so happy about getting a needle jabbed into his arm, but Hunk was quick about it, and made sure that he didn’t hurt Lance too much, thankfully. Next, Shiro checked his temperature and his heartbeat, giving all the information to Hunk who wrote it down on some sort of device, which Lance is mostly surprised that it’s even working underwater. Lance has seen a few of these devices that have fallen from the surface while traveling from trench to trench, and each one he’s seen has lost any life in it. But Hunk’s seem to be doing just fine. After Shiro seemed to be done checking his breathing, he motioned to Hunk to do something and then motioned to Lance, holding out his arm for Lance to take while Hunk moved out of his field of vision, Lance looks back to see Hunk hovering around his waist, both hands positioned on either side of him. Lance looks back to Shiro, obviously confused and uncomfortable with what might happen, Shiro takes hold of Lance’s hand and gives it a comforting squeeze. And while Lance can’t hear him, he can feel the silent request, trust me, please. Lance takes in a deep breath through his gills and gives a shaky nod to Shiro, taking hold of his arm and not letting go, bracing for whatever kind of pain he’s going to experience.

But there wasn’t any. In fact, there wasn’t even a harsh or strong grasp from Hunk. instead, he feels light touches moving across his back, it’s almost too light for it to be the large man behind him, and yet he persists in checking over every part, except for his spines oddly enough, but his spines have been a bit off lately, always barely catching any movement unless it’s right by him, but he doesn’t really want to think about what that could mean, merely waving it off as exhaustion or lack of movement to catch. The touches return at the base of his tail, and just as before his touches are quick yet soft, carefully outlining every scar and patch of new scales growing in on his tail. Lance looks back and sees the pure concentration in Hunk’s movements, of how gentle he’s being with him, carefully checking over every scale and fin to see the cuts made into them, whether by creatures of the deep or from his more recent injuries from human kind. He checks it all over methodically, running down the expanse of his tail until getting to his tail fin. And with the same level of tenderness, he spreads out the tail fin and takes stock of each rip and cut made into it. Finally, Hunk lets the tail fin go and gives a light pat to Lance’s tail and sign to Shiro, who gives a nod back in confirmation. Shiro looks back to Lance and lets go of Lance’s hand to give him the thumbs up sign. Lance nods and lets go of Shiro’s arm, a bit flushed for being so scared, and let alone seeking some kind of comfort from a human.

Of course…...Shiro wasn’t like any other human Lance has ever met.

Shiro uses his now free hand to point up towards the surface, and all three of them swim back up to the walkway. Hunk pulls himself up first and then grabs Shiro and lifts him up without any problem. Lance looks at Hunk at bit perplexed. For someone so strong that he can easily lift another man to be able to be so gentle and careful whenever he wants, he must have amazing control over his strength. He sort of reminds Lance of a whale; large and imposing, yet very sweet and humble, not wanting to hurt another being if they can.

“Great job Lance. You handled that really well, i’m so proud of you. We just need to do one last thing and then we’ll be done.” Shiro says once he removes the mask from his face. He moves back over to where he left his fake arm and clothes, Hunk following close behind. Lance, curious about the arm, pulls himself somewhat out of the water to where he is able to prop his torso onto the cold metal to get closer. He watches as Shiro pulls off the pack and undos the top of the black suit he has on, to where it hangs around his waist haphazardly. Lance watches as Shiro places the metal arm where the rest of his real one stops, and he does something with it, pushing some sort of button that makes the top part hiss and push up into the arm, to which Shiro slides the rest of the arm into place and twists the top part, getting a clicking sound that Lance can see the Shiro winces a bit at. And then the arm is moving just like the other, if not just a bit stiff with some movements. Shiro points to something by the door whispering something to Hunk who nods and walks towards said door, mostly to retrieve whatever he was told to get. Shiro walks back over to Lance and kneels down to his level.

“so , you might not like this part of the check up.” Lance shrinks back, ready to bolt back down if need be. “Don’t worry! it’s not dangerous, I promise! I would never hurt you. We just need to check your weight and get an x-ray. The first part didn’t sound so bad, but Lance had no idea what this ‘x-ray’ thing was or if it was at all dangerous. But, Shiro said it wasn’t dangerous, and Shiro hasn’t lied to him once yet. Lance moves back closer to the platform, still a bit weary, he’s waiting for the bad news about it. “ unfortunately, we have to take you out of the water to do both.” there it is. He chose to do the check up in his tank so that he wouldn’t have to be taken out of the water. “ you’ll only be out for a couple of minutes so we can get the reading and the scans, and then we’ll safely put you back in. and then that’s it. check up over.” Lance lets out a very disgruntled noise,not wanting to leave his tank at all. But he knows that if he does sink back down, the two will either swim down and drag him out, or will wait around and won’t stop bothering him until he agrees to do it. It would just be easier for all of them if Lance just got it over with.

But of course, Lance isn’t want to just surrender without putting up some sort of fight.

As soon as Hunk gets close, Lance launches his attack, hitting the water just right with his tail, he manages to get both of them in the wave and quickly swims below to make his escape, cackling along the way. He can’t believe he got Shiro twice with that. He sinks to the bottom, laughing so hard that he has to hold his stomach from laughing so hard. Lance can’t but remembering the looks on their faces, making him break back out into laughter again, rolling around in the sand, kicking up a cloud of and in his wake. After a couple of minutes of laughing his tail fins off, he finally decides that he’s up to going back up to the surface, at least to get this check up out of the way and done. He wasn’t expecting to see both drenched humans standing at the ready with water toys that Shiro had called ‘water guns’ pointed at the ready at Lance. As soon as he breach the water, the both of them squirted him as fast as possible, catching Lance off guard and getting a very startled yelp and another wave of water from Lance’s flailing from their attack. After that it’s hard to say what happened exactly, but it was the most fun Lance has ever had. Water was thrown right and left, Lance is pretty sure that Shiro had ‘accidentally’ pushed Hunk back into the water, to which Hunk switch to Lance’s side of the fight and bombarded Shiro with waves and shots of water until they were both sure that Shiro was soaked through and through. Of course, once the water fight was done and over with, Lance obliged to being taken out of the water to be weighted and x-rayed, delighted to see both large men struggle to carry him over onto a metal box first. Shiro was right that it only took a minute for the metal box to start beeping and then Shiro and Hunk were carrying him over to some sort of sheet that was between two metal poles. They lay him down on the sheet and take hold of the poles and lifted him up. They begin to make their way out of the room Lance’s tank is and through long hallways with bright lights that startle Lance at first, getting an apology from both men and whispered promises to be quick to get him in an out of the x-rays. Thankfully, the room they take hum into is considerable much more darker than the corridors they just went through. They put him on another metal slab and he sits still as the both of them lift parts of his body putting some sort of sheet underneath him, then switching to the next part of his boy and on and on. After they had completely went over the entire length of his body, they carried him back through the bright hallways and back into the room with his tank. The both of them pick up Lance from the sheet and over into his tank as best as they could.

Once Lance was back into his tank, he watched both men walk over to their normal clothes and try their best to dry off before putting them on. It didn’t completely work as their common clothes had a few wet stains here and there, mostly around the head hole where there hair was still wet when they pulled them on. It was pretty funny to watch them try and peel off the black clothing from their legs. Lance was in such a good mood, he let out a sweet song, carrying more his emotions than words like most mermaids do. But he liked it this way, giving the impression of a light laugh full of joy and happiness. Shiro turns around when he hears Lance’s small little tune, looking almost startled by it, but soon was grinning with as much a happiness as Lance’s tune held.

Hunk took the electronic and waved to Lance, calling out a good bye before taking his leave with the large metal box as well. Lance waves back, a soft smile settling on his face as he watches the man go. Lance looks back over to Shiro, who is just pulling his shirt over his head, his back towards Lance. But also, the scars on them shown to Lance as well. There were quite a few, and Lance is sure he’s seen some similar to those before, but just can’t place it. Shiro turns around, his shirt completely on and a white jacket being pulled on over it. He walks back over to Lance and with his real hand, ruffles his hair with that same sweet smile he always seems to have.

“I’ll come back later with your dinner, okay? I’m really proud of you today. Thank you.” Lance leans into the touch but gives Shiro a confused look when he thanked him.

“ for trusting me. I know it must not have been easy, so I’m very glad that you felt that you could.” Shiro gives his hair one last ruffle before standing up and waving goodbye as he walks through the door as well.

Lance sinks back down and hides inside one of the tunnels, wanting to hide away from the warm feeling in his chest that he got from Shiro’s words and his actions. No one has ever been so kind to him like that before, let alone wanted to touch him in such an affectionate way. It was a bit surprising, yet Lance couldn’t bring himself to dislike the act. It was nice. It made him feel so great inside. He shouldn’t be feeling like this rom something that a human did, and yet it made him feel so much more alive and happy than he ever felt in his lonely caverns.  
Lance wasn’t exactly sure how to react to it at all. So he hid from it all in his tunnels, just wanting some privacy from the world around him to try and make some sense of it all. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but after the nervous and exciting day he’s had, he didn’t even realize his eyes had closed until it was too late to stop himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the now all too familiar sound of one of the toy rings dropping into the water that woke Lance from his comfortable dreams. He sluggishly stretches out and swim out of his tunnels. He slowly wakes up as he swims around more, looking for the brightly colored ring that he knows Shiro dropped in to let him know he’s up on the surface. Lance finds it and makes his way up to the walkway, where just like always, Shiro is waiting for him, giving him that warming smile as always. But this time Shiro has something other than a bucket, instead he has a brown bag and two cups by his side. Lance props himself on the edge the walkway next to Shiro’s legs, his arms crossed so he can lay his head on them.

“Hey, stranger.” Shiro greets, which is pretty confusing to Lance since they aren’t strangers, they’ve known each other for weeks. Humans are so strange. But Shiro doesn't seem to catch on to Lance’s confusion as he continues on. “I brought something different this time around. I wanted to give you something a bit more special than the usual stuff I bring, so I went to the fish market and got you something a bit more fresh than usual. I hope you like them.” Shiro explains as he grabs the bag and pulls something out of it, out of view from where Lance is. But he doesn't have to see it to smell it, and he knows that smell all too well.

Shiro puts down the live lobster into front of Lance, who immediately snatches it up with a fervor. He notices the bands around the claws but doesn’t pay much mind to them as he tries to break open the shell on the metal floor, unsuccessfully each time. Shiro’s laugh makes him realize that he can’t get enough strength to do it while trying to balance himself in the water. Shiro holds out both of his hand to Lance, who sets down the crustacean to flusteredly take his hands,not exactly sure as to why but doesn’t want to pass up such a sweet gesture. Instead, Shiro pulls up Lance onto the walkway.

“There, you might find it a bit easier now.” Shiro says, reaching back into the bag for something else, most likely his own food. Lance pick up the lobster once again, and tries again to break the shell on the lobster. Ad after the third try, he hears that successful crack and works on opening up the shell more to get to the meat. He can hear Shiro chuckling beside him, but right now all he cares about is getting to the meat inside.

Both were silent as they ate, appreciating the comforting atmosphere between them as they each enjoy their food. Lance finishes up and tosses the empty shell down into the tank,even with Shiro’s half serious scowl at him doing so. Lance merely shrugs his shoulders, a sly smile sliding into place with the motion, which seems to break the frown off of Shiro’s face as he tries to hide his laughter unsuccessfully.

Lance’s eye drift back down to Shiro’s arm, the questions from before bubbling back up in his mind. The staring doesn’t go unnoticed, as Shiro tries to curl into himself, his metal arm curled up close to his chest. But Lance doesn’t want Shiro to hide, he’s done so much for Lance and now he wants to give some comfort in return. Lance lightly places his webbed hand on top of Shiro’s arm, where metal joins with flesh, and although it’s covered by fabric, Lance can slightly feel the groove of where they meet. He doesn’t want to make Shiro afraid, he just wants to understand. he wants to show the same amount of support that Shiro has shown him.

Lance waits, hand still touching his arm as gentle as he can. Shiro slowly uncurls himself and after taking a few deep breaths he slowly holds out his hand to Lance. Lance carefully takes it and pushes up the sleeve to reveal the metal casing around his arm. Lance experimentally plays with the digits, watching as they move with how Lance pushes them seamlessly. Lance can hear Shiro lets out a shaky laugh while Lanc plays around with his fingers, letting out some of the tension that’s built between them. Lance looks up at Shiro, his fingers aimlessly following the seams along the metal. He watches Shiro, letting him take his time to answer his unspoken question. Shiro takes a another deep breath, and with a shaky voice starts to speak.

“I was in the military a couple of years ago, i went over to Iraq on one of my deployments and while over there…” Shiro lets another shaky breath and Lance laces his fingers with Shiro’s, showing his silent support in him. Shiro gives him a watery smile and squeezes Lance hand in thanks. “ while...while i was over there, my convoy hit an IED.” Lance doesn’t understand everything about what Shiro is saying, but he can tell that it was a very awful thing to happen to someone. He lets out a low tone of sympathy for Shiro, who pats Lance’s hand but has his eyes glued to the ripples that Lance’s tail is making in the water with each movement. “I was taken captive and….. And had to endure so much. Just...so much that i don’t even remember. That I‘m not sure i even want to remember. I was finally rescued after a month in captivity. I lost my arm, my memories. It just seemed that I lost most of myself out there.” Shiro becomes quiet, eyes trained on the water, and his human hand clenching so hard Lance was concerned he might hurt himself, yet the hand that Lance still holds is slack, making sure as to not hurt Lance at all. Lance continues to sing the low notes, letting Shiro know that he’s right there for him. Shiro’s eyes shift over to Lance’s hand in his own, and a soft, vulnerable smile crawls across his face.

“I was honorably discharged and was given this arm, but i still didn’t know how to really find  
myself again. For a long while i was just lost, trying to get back memories I wasn’t even sure i wanted, hoping that if i could remember then i could find myself again and move on. I went to countless doctors trying to figure out a way of remembering. It wasn’t until i found a really good therapist that i finally understood why I couldn’t move on yet with my life…. In my mind, I was still there, trying to find a way to be free. My therapist told me about a type of aqua therapy group, and I sort of fell in love with the water. And that love changed into a love of marine life. I guess you can say that I found myself helping mermaids and mermen who need help like i did. I went to school and got a degree in marine biology, and I’ve been here ever since.”

Shiro’s eyes trail up Lance’s arm until it reaches his face, that soft smile gracing his face so beautifully. The white in his hair now showing the stress he went through, and the scar across his nose being a sign of his strength and endurance. The scars that littered Shiro’s back did remind him of something; it reminded Lance of his own back from when he was captured by that beast. Lance leans in and rests his forehead against Shiro’s, closing his eyes and focusing on the sound of Shiro’s breathing. Shiro lets out a nervous chuckle, “ I guess you and me aren’t so different, huh. We both know the darker sides to humanity, we’ve seen it face to face.” Lance merely lets out another low tone in response, letting the moment draw out as they both revel in the other’s warmth. Neither of them really wanting the moment to end, but Shiro finally pulls away and wipes at his eyes, a bright blush dancing across his scarred cheeks. He scrambles to fill the silence between them, hands still locked together as Lance watches in amusement as Shiro starts to ramble about little things about humans that Lance has never heard of, most of the words not making a lot of sense, but he listens to Shiro anyways, enjoying the sound of Shiro’s voice as he talks.

They stay like that for hours, so long that Lance is sure that his plates are sore from sitting on the cold metal for so long. Lance slides back into the water as Shiro stands up with a groan, they’re hands finally separating from each other, but not before Lance plants a quick kiss onto the warmed metal of Shiro’s hand. Shiro once again turns red from the action and wishes him a quick good night and picks up the trash and walks back to the end of the walkway briskly, obviously very flustered by Lance’s act. Lance couldn’t help but smile as he sinks back down into the water and swims around the tank, trying to burn off the extra energy and his own feelings before trying to go back to sleep on the warm sand bed, falling asleep to dreams of warmth and a sense of belonging that he’s never felt before. Not like this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next few days went just as usual. Shiro would come in the morning to give him his usual food, they would toss around one of the toys that Shiro has brought in before, and then Shiro would be on his way to do whatever else he does there while Lance works on regaining more of his strength. But nowadays, Shiro will come around during the night with all sorts of fish that Lance has never tried before, and Shiro will talk about anything and everything, from his family to all sorts of strange human customs and objects. Many times Shiro will take hold of Lance’s hand as he talks, other times they merely sit in silence and enjoy the company of the other. Once Lance actually let him explore his tail; letting him trace every scar and every groove of the armored plating. He even explored his spines, all with such a gentle and light touch, of course it tickled all the same.

Many times Hunk would join Shiro and they would always find themselves either in the midst of another water war, or both Shiro and Hunk will try and explain human sayings, although Lance still struggles with most of it, he finds it too funny to see both of them try and explain their confusing language, and it always end with all of them bursting in laughter at their ridiculousness.

Lance has never felt more at peace with himself, enjoying the company of both Shiro and most recently Hunk’s. He’s never so at home before. So wanted. So…..so loved. He’s never really had friends before, he’s never had anyone to spend his time with. He once thought that he didn’t need anyone, his only friend being the darkness that was his trenches. But now; now he actually knows why so many search for companions to enjoy life with. He understands why so many mermaids stay in pods. But now that he’s had a taste of it, he’s not sure he wants to leave it now. With his goal to finally be free and back into the sea in his grasp, he’s not exactly sure he wants to go back to that lonely existance anymore. To think that it’s humans that stole him away from the sea, and now it’s humans that he doesn’t want to leave behind.

But he doesn’t have much of a choice.

Once he’s fully healed, they’ll let him go.

It’s what he’s wanted since day one.

But now. He doesn’t really know what he wants anymore.

He’s found a new sort of freedom that he isn’t sure he wants to give up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time that Shiro came to his tank, a dark tension came with him into the room.

He doesn’t even give Lance much notice until Lance finally flicks some water onto his face, startling him out of his thoughts.

But he doesn’t even try to smile at Lance, he just sits down and motions for Lance to come close. As he moves closer, he sees that Shiro won’t even look him in the eye. Lance gives him a worried look, placing his hand on Shiro’s knee to get his attention.

“Lance, I’m not going to lie to you. I could never do that to you.”

Shiro gives a pause, letting the seriousness of the situation to sink in for Lance.

“We were checking some of the test results and x rays that came back from your check up, and we found some things that are a bit...worrying.” Shiro states, still not making eye contact with Lance, no matter how much he tries. “When we checked your spines, you had no reaction to the physical touches and you had some delayed reactions, and when we looked at you x-rays….” Shiro stops mid-sentence, trying to hide away from Lance’s worried gaze, But Lance doesn’t need to see his eyes to smell the salt of his tears. “The bones in your spines have taken extensive damage from your time in captivity, and since the bone has such damage, it would also mean that the nerves have taken that damage as well. It can and...and will make living out in the wide much more dangerous for you.” Lance reaches up and cups Shiro’s face like he’s done to Lance whenever they share those quiet moments in the middle of the night when all of their troubles seem to find a way to one them down. Shiro leans into the wet touch and lifts his head from staring down at his lap to finally looking at Lance. He can see the tears that are slipping down his cheeks. Lance brushes one of the tears away from it’s track. Shiro lets out a sigh and takes hold of Lance’s hand on his cheek, holding it close.

“That doesn’t mean that we won’t release you, if you want to. But many of the others agree that it would be safer for you if you became a permanent resident here. I know that I promised that you would be set free once you were completely healed, and if you want to, we will release you back into the sea. But I just want you to know that…. I don’t want to see you get hurt because of anyone else’s decisions. Even my own. So, I’m giving the choice to you. If you want to leave, I’ll fully support you and make sure that you will be released. But if you want to stay here...I wouldn’t mind seeing you.” Shiro confesses, looking away from Lance as if his own desires are keeping Lance trapped. “But It’s not my choice, it’s yours. I’ll...give you some time by yourself to let you decide ” Shiro pats Lance’s hand and gets up slowly, trying to pull away with his head hung low. But Lance doesn’t want him to leave, not when he’s being left with an seemingly impossible decision. Lance takes hold of Shiro’s hand as he tries to pull away, making Shiro turn back and looking at Lance with a bit of surprise. Shir gives him a watery smile, and bends down and lightly kiss the top of Lance’s hand; a silent promise of support and what Lance hopes is some sign of commitment to one another. Shiro pets Lance’s hand before letting go and leaving Lance all alone.

Lance swims circles around the tank, hoping the constant movement will somehow help him make up his mind.

He doesn’t even know why he’s struggling with this so much, the decision should be easy to make. To be free. It’s what he’s wanted for so long, and now it’s only a grasp away, just one more flick of the tail away from the trenches and ravines that he’s always known. It’s the closest thing he’s ever considered home; the caverns that hold so much the world of men haven’t yet seen, only for his eyes to look upon, the moving lights of bioluminescent fish as they speed through the water lighting his way in any darkness, just to be able to know that he never has to worry about glass walls again. Just to be able to be free again. It’s all he’s wanted since the beginning of this terrible experience.

And yet…..this misadventure hasn’t been entirely all tears and blood. He’s found something that he’s never had before back in his deep water. These friendships that he never realized he needed before has become something that is holding him in a stand still with himself. This in itself has become a freedom of it’s own. No, it’s not the freedom of the open sea; but it’s a freedom that he’s never had before. A freedom to be himself, to find kinship in others, and... maybe even more with one person. He actually surprises himself with how much he wants to stay here and find a new home with these people. With Hunk and his little friend who has given him so much. And with Shiro. He wants to try and find a home with these people. But does he want to put all of their hard work and the risks that they’ve taken all to go to waste?  
  
For days, Lance struggles with the decision. Barely eating or sleeping, always swimming back and forth in his tank until he exhausts himself and has to lay down. And even then, his dreams are filled with both the hopes and disasters that could come with each choice. But in the end, the choice was clear to him. He always knew in his heart what he was going to do in the long run.

He made up his mind.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for any grammmar or spelling errors; I was just so excited to post this that I didn’t do a full check of it all. 
> 
> Enjoy chapter 2, and have a merry Christmas!

When Lance had agreed to stay, Shiro looked so happy and excited that Lance was sure that he would drag him out of the tank just to spin him around in delight. Thankfully, Shiro refrained himself from doing so, but all that happiness could clearly be seen in his broad smile that Lance couldn't help but return.

“This is going to be great Lance! Just you wait, I'll show you all sorts of things about human life that I know you'll love; there's all types of music, and movies we can watch together, and don't let me forget to give you a taste of some of the food we have. It'll be different from the usual fish that you get, but I don't want you to go a day without finding something new about human culture.” Shiro rambles on and on, taking a seat on the edge of the edge near Lance. Lance lifts himself so that his upper body rests on the cool metal beside him, enjoying the way Shiro’s voice lifts and flows with each new suggestion. Lance swishes his tail from side to at a lazy pace, enjoying the feeling to the water split with each movement of his tail. Shiro makes an obvious move and places his hand on Lance’s shoulder so that Lance knows that it's actually there. If he really focuses, he can feel the weight of his hand on his shoulder, but beyond that it's very hazy.

“And we can even teach you how to write, or even talk! I mean, we don't have to you don't want to. If you want we can teach you how to talk with your hands. And when we get the whole exhibit open, you'll be able to move about so much more!”

Wait. Exhibit? Lance slips back into the water, shoc growing on his face with each word, but it seems that Shiro didn't notice the change in Lance as he continues on.

“And just think of how much fun it will be to give special shows and show just how amazing you are! Oh man, the public is going to love you! We might even be able to learn some tricks that you can do to wow the crowds!”

Lance sinks lower and lower into the water, to where only his eyes and the top of his head is above water. Shiro looks down at lance, probably thinking that he'll see some sort of excitement to match his own, but the only thing lance’s eyes are giving him is the look of regret and disbelief. Shiro's eyes go wide as he realizes that Lance is clearly upset.

“Wait, Lance I’m sorry I-”

No.

No no no no no no no.   
Lance shakes his head in disbelief, not wanting what was said to be true. But the look in Shiro’s eyes said it all.

Lance doesn't stay around to listen to whatever lies Shiro might tell him. He sinks down into his tank and swims down to the tunnels, not wanting anyone to see him. He curls up as much as possible into the tunnel he chose, making sure not a single fin or scale is able to be seen.

He can't believe that this place was just like before. He was going to be put on display for people to mock him and belittle him all over again. He thought this place was different, that he would safely hidden away, where only a few trusted people would see him. But instead he had just chosen to stay in another type of cage for people to stare at him like some freak of nature. Was Shiro just using him? Was it all just some big ruse to get him to stay? Would they even have let him go if he wanted to? Lance is glad that he's underwater and hidden away, that way no one can tell that he's crying.

The harder he thinks about it, the more tears fall from his eyes to mix with the water around him. But the feeling of regret and betrayal still wells up in his chest, feeling as though a heavy weight is placed on his lungs. With a deep inhale, Lance let's out a wail, a mournful song of heartbreak to echo along the ripples of the water. He doesn't stop his cries of pain and anguish until he can feel the strain in his throats and his eyes have spent themselves of tears. And even when his voice gave out, and all of his energy spent. His chest felt both hollow and heavy at the exact same time.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he just trust a human so willingly?

Why?

….Why?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Lance awoke to the achingly familiar sound of the toy ring being dropped into the water, but he didn't want to see Shiro. Not now. He doesn't think he can handle seeing him. So Lance ignored it. He even went as far as not going outside of the tunnels, not wanting anyone to see him. He just wanted to be left alone now. He doesn't want to see anyone, and he doesn't want anyone to see him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With each day Lance hides away, he hears the sound of water toys drop into his waters beaconing for him to come out. And with each day, Lance refuses to show himself, let alone go up and talk with Shiro. his heart still hurting from the betrayal of it all. He's not sure anymore if he wants to even talk to Hunk, Who has become a close friend over his time here. Was Hunk in on his too? Was he only being nice to him to get him to want to stay?

Lance doesn't even leave the tunnels to go grab the food that gets dropped in, afraid that if he leaves then Shiro will be waiting for him. He doesn't want to hear any of sort of sweet lie from him. He just doesn't know if his heart and his trust could take anymore blows to them.

But each day, he hears the sounds of Shiro’s silent plea to talk with him. Each day, he hears the food being dropped into his tank. He's surprised Shiro hasn't just come in and pull him out yet, he is human after all. But each day, he can smell the fresh fish more and more as the smell of it seems to permeate through the water.

To make sure he didn't get stiff fins, Lance would travel through the tunnels, letting the calm shifting of water against his fins and gils try and help soothe the raw feeling that has made a home in his heart. That is, until he sees his little treasure trove of toys and gifts that Shiro has given him though their time together. Small trinkets like

After the fourth day of hiding out in his tunnels, the smell finally convinces Lance to peak out of his hideaway and sees a pile of fish. It seems that Shiro hasn't even come into his tank get rid of the old food. Lance almost wants to be thankful that Shiro has been giving him the space that he needs, but he just can't bring himself to do that. Even if it's just to himself, he just can't. It still hurts too much.

Lance waits for hours like this, unsure if he wants to make the journey across the tank to quell his hungry stomach. He knows he can last a few more days without it, but he's not sure if he's really willing to torture himself like this. So many others have done that to him, he doesn't want to be add to own his list of people that have hurt him. But just the idea of even showing himself to anyone, especially Shiro, it just burns his chest to even think about it. He doesn't want to be seen so weak and vulnerable. To been seen as crushed as he feels.

Once Lance is absolutely sure that there is no one around, he speeds out of his tunnel and grabs as much fish as his arms can carry and zips back into his hiding spot, hoping that he was fast enough that no one saw him. He looks at the pile in his hands and sees that it will last him a few days if he rations it. Good. He's not ready to go back again anytime soon.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't until a week after the revealing incident that Lance finally decided to surface and face Shiro head on, albeit very far from the platform from where Shiro stands. He definitely looks worse for wear; his hair and clothes a complete mess and even from this distance Lance can see the dark bags under his eyes. Lance almost feels sorry that he's avoided him. Almost. Their  
last conversation still far too fresh in his mind.

Shiro looks up and looks surprised to see Lance.  
“Lance…”

Lance merely glares. If only he knew how to speak, he would Shiro a huge piece of his mind. But for now, only a glare can really show the pain that he feels. He can tell that Shiro understands what he's trying to convey by the way he averts his eyes and looks ashamed of himself. Good. Shiro sits down on the platform, making sure that his feet don't enter the water. When he looks back up, Lance can't see it, but he can smell the tears that are no doubtedly running down his face.

“I'm sorry.”

Those two words may have been quiet but they seem to scream around them in the silence.

“Lance, I'm sorry. I...did that all wrong. I messed up. I could probably tell you a thousand reasons why I messed up, but that doesn't change the fact that I scared you. And probably broke your trust. But….I still want to try and explain what I said better. So that you can understand what I meant. That is….if you're willing to hear me out.”

Lance doesn't move. He isn't sure what to do. He wants to believe Shiro and let him try and explain himself. He really does. But he's not sure if his heart can take whatever horrible truth may fall from his lips. He just can't be sure anymore.

After what felt like hours of internal debate, Lance hesitantly moves closer to the platform. Not close enough to where Shiro can touch him, but at least to hear him better and show that he's listening. Shiro lets out a sigh that seems to let the tension in his shoulders fade away, and there's a hint of a smile on his face. He reaches out to touch Lance’s cheek, but Lance immediately pulls away, still hurt from the week before and unwilling to let Shiro’s soft affection sway his trust. Shiro pulls his hand back as if the rejection burned him, disappointment and understanding dancing across his face.

“Lance….what I said before, I didn't explain it how I originally planned to tell you. I was so excited with you agreeing to stay, I just blurted it out in the worst way possible. But I promise you, this place is nothing like the one you were in before. This place is called an aquarium, specifically it's both a marine wildlife hospital and an aquarium.”

Lance gives him a confused look, wondering how an ‘aquarium’ was any different like sendak’s exhibits.

“An aquarium is a place where humans come to learn about sea wildlife in a way that is both safe for humans and the animals here. This isn't a place where people will find enjoyment out of asserting dominance. It's a place where people can learn and appreciate and see the beauty of sea wildlife.”

That….does sound pretty different, but the thought alone of being on display for people to watch him still terrifies him down to the bone.

“And what I said before about the exhibit….that came out so wrong. What I wanted to tell you was that before you came into our care, the aquarium already had announced that they were going to add a deep sea area, for trench and midnight zone fish to be seen by the public for the first time. And when you came into our care, well it only made us more sure of making this area.”

Lance tries and wraps his mind around the idea, but he can't help but make bad conclusions about it. He didn't like the idea of being in an exhibit again, stuck in a tank with no where else to go.

“There's going to be large tubes that connect all the tanks so that you and the other deep sea fish can swim through and travel wherever you wish in the area, and there are going to be loads of hiding places of all sorts of sizes so that it'll be more comfortable for you guys. And the whole area will be under black light, like these,” shiro points up to the purple lighting that's been such a welcome light to Lance’s eyes, “so that it won't disrupt yours and others eyesight.”

Shiro looks back at Lance, hope in his eyes that his explanation has somehow helped. Lance isn't quite sure that it has.

“And what I said about the shows and training, you don't have to do them at all. Lance…” shiro reaches out again, but stops just a few inches from Lance, letting him decide if he wants to be touched and how much. “...if you changed your mind about staying, I would completely understand.” Lance looks at Shiro in shock. but he had chose to stay...  
He could still leave if he wanted to?

“Lance, you can leave whenever you want to go back out there. It doesn't matter if it's a week from now or months, or even years. If you ever decide that you want to leave, than we'll help you do that.”

Lance nods in understanding, still very overwhelmed by all the new information. Thankfully, Shiro seems to understand and stands back up. “If you'd like I can come back again tomorrow. Let you think things over. But if you still want space, I'll leave you be. Good night Lance.” Shiro gives him a small wave before walking away.

Lance lets out a long whistle, catching Shiro’s attention before he left. Lance dived back down to the tank floor and picks up the toy rings that litter the area. Swimming as fast as possible, he breaches the water and sets the toys on the platform. Lance looks up to see Shoro giving such a relieved smile. He was still very wary of what was to come, but he realizes that whatever happened next for him here, he would always have Shiro in his corner. Even if he says stuff the wrong way.

Lance sinks back down and finds rest much easier than he has in the past week, able to let some of his worries float up and away from his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Shiro came back the next day, he brought drawings of how the new tanks will look, explaining some more of how the entire area will look once it was done. And Lance has to say, he can see why Shiro is excited for it all to be real. Both of them knew that sooner or later, the tank Lance is in right now won't be open enough for him, so the prospect of being able to move from one tank to another sounds really great! Let alone the talk about there being crevices and cave systems to hide and curl up into. Shiro took extra care to explain that there will be enough hideaways that if Lance ever got overwhelmed, no matter what tank he was in, he would have a few places to hide from view.

Shiro even went as far as to explain the special shows that he had brought up before so that Lance had a much clearer idea of what they were.

“It's where a certain amount of people come into a dark room, and one of our staff will go in front of them and tell them the stories behind certain marine wildlife, explaining the skills of said creature as they move around through a special tank that humans can look into. Usually, there is another creature and a specially trained inside the tank with them so that they aren't alone in the tank, and if they catch even a hint of nervousness in the animal, they help lead them out of the tank and back into its own habitat.”

Lance nods along, trying to keep an open mind, but still...the thought of being on display for all those people to just watch him like that, well let’s just say that if he could feel his spines anymore, he would know that they were shaking.

“Lance, hey, it's okay. I won't ever force you to do one of those shows if you don't want to. I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to do them.”

Lance forces his body to relax, reminding himself that he has the choice to not do something. It helped somewhat, but so would swimming a few dozen laps around the tank to get himself exhausted enough to just sleep.

“Lance?”

Lance snaps or of his thoughts and looks back up to Shiro, enjoying the way the water reflects in his eyes and creating such a beautiful sight.

“There is a downside to the new tanks.”

Downside? What downside?

“In order for them to built, we have to move you into a different tank.”

Move him? Why? Can't they just build it with him still here, in the safe lighting and the warm waters? Why does he have to be moved!

“It will be too dangerous for you to stay here while the construction workers are working. Both for you and them. They need to have the tank completely drained so that they can work in it and add on all tubing. So you're going to be moved into one of the special areas we have here. And… it's out in the public viewing areas.” Lance lets out a whine, letting Shiro know how much Lance wasn't a fan of that idea. He knows that he's going to be seen by others sooner or later, but he didn't think it would be soon. He was really hoping for later.

“I know, I know, but it's the only tank suitable for mermaids that we have besides this one. If it helps, you won't be the only one there? You meet our two other resident mermaids.”

Other mermaids? That…..Lance wasn't completely sure how to feel about that. The only time he's ever met another mermaid was when he had to fight for his life. And that was one experience he didn't want to relive. Besides that….lance has never really met another mermaid before. To mermaids, he's more of a legend; something to tell their guppies as scary stories or as a way to get them to behave. Any mermaids that ever even tried to come down would soon get lost and swim back up before they even got down to the midnight zone. The So Lance has never really met one of his own kind before, and the idea of meeting two of them? And having to live with them who knows how long?! It’s terrifying.

“Lance? Lance what’s wrong?” Lance looks up at the sound of Shiro’s voice and sees that Shiro is looking at him, worried riddled all over his face. Lance tries to hide beneath the water, not wanting to tell him about how he’s never met one of his own kind before. But Shiro takes his hand gently, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. The message silent, yet it fills his every thought. ‘I got you, don’t worry.’

He lifts his head out of the water, and for some reason feeling ashamed of himself, avoids eye contact with Shiro. But he still waits for him, rubbing a soothing pattern on the top of his hand as he lets Lance figure out how to explain what scared him so much. With his free hand, Lance shakily puts up one finger. He points to himself and holds up the finger once again, hoping that somehow the message gets across.

“One? You….one? Alone? You’ve been alone.” lance nods, and with hesitation he removes his other hand from Shiro’s. He puts up two fingers now and puts them side by side and with a heavy head, he shakes his head as he once again points to himself and only holds up one.

“You never had anyone else? You’ve always been alone? You….you’ve never met anyone of your kind before.” Lance nods, placing his hand back into Shiro’s still open hand. He doesn’t want to look at Shiro’s face, doesn’t want to see what Shiro thinks. He hides his face behind Shiro’s human arm, hoping that the small protection it can give him will be enough from the emotions that seem to be running wild lately, he doesn’t like not being in charge of his emotions. He can’t protect himself if he wears every emotion on his wrist. But… he doesn’t need to hide them anymore. He doesn’t have enemies here. He doesn’t need to keep himself locked up to keep himself safe anymore. It’s very daunting to finally be able to completely express himself, he’s not entirely use to it. Lance feels Shiro lift his hand away from Lance’s and place it on top of his head, carding his fingers through Lance’s wet hair.

“You’re scared about meeting the other mermaids here. Aren’t you?”

Lance nods, still avoiding eye contact.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that you don’t have much to worry about; they’re both pretty quirky, and they love meeting new people. I’m sure that you and Matt are going to find some things in common, and don’t even get me started on Katie, i could go on and on about her little quirks. I think that you’ll be just fine and if I’m wrong, I’ll get with my superiors and figure something else out. Just...try it out for a few days. Okay?”

Lance finally looks up at Shiro, and can’t find it in himself to say no after seeing how sure of himself he was about these two mermaids. Lance nods hesitantly, willing to at least give it a chance,for Shiro, even if in his mind he can see how it all can go wrong as soon as he’s in the water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days later, Shiro came in with Hunk and two new people that Lance has never seen before, rolling in a large tank and some sort of black sheet. Shiro and Hunk each wave at Lance as they come closer to the edge of the platform, Lance meeting them there as well. The other two close behind, but still giving some space. For themselves or for Lance’s sake, he isn't sure but he appreciates the space anyways.

Hunk leans down and holds out his hand towards Lance, who immediately slapped his own hand down on top of his, just like Hunk had taught him. A boisterous laugh bubbles out of Hunk at the proud smile Lance is giving himself one that quickly gets both Lance and Shiro to join in. it’s nice to see Hunk again, it feels like forever since he’s seen him. But of course, the joyful moment comes to an end and Shiro is waving the two new humans closer.

“Lance, I’d like you to meet Allura and Coran,they work here as well and you’ll be seeing more of them as time goes on. Coran is our resident marine wildlife vet, he’s the one who patched you up once you were found.” the first person comes up, obviously much older than anyone else in the room, his hair a surprisingly bright red, with a curled mustache to match. He crouches down and juts his hand out towards Lance, an energetic smile greeting hm as Lance tentatively shakes his hand. Lance didn’t really remember him, or much of anything from when he passed out after the forced fight, but if this guy was the one who saved his life, the least he could do was say hello.

Coran gives a strong shake of his hand, beaming when he says, “oh don’t give me all the credit Shiro, You were a big part of it as well. But it’s good to see that you’ve healed up just dandy. I’m glad to see that you’ve regained some weight and strength as well.” Lance nods in thanks before turning to the other person. She was much different, like Hunk her skin was a dark olive-brown, accented by white cascading hair, she shuffles around the dark sheet before holding out her own hand in greeting. “Hello. I’m Allura, it’s nice to finally meet you, shiro has talked quite a lot about you.” Lance takes hold of her hand as well, and gives it a few shakes. He can hear Hunk snickering behind the others, but he’s not quite sure why. Shiro coughs really loudly before continuing to speak, “ Allura works with Coran as his apprentice, but she mostly gives tours to groups or parties, so you’ll being seeing her a lot as well.” Lance nods, giving her a closed smile, trying to keep his sharp teeth hidden so as not to seem threatening.

After introductions were made, Hunk and Shiro got to work on picking up Lance, which has gotten much easier since Lance can get himself onto the platform by himself now, and carrying him over to movable tank. It was much smaller than what he’s gotten used to here. The size of it all too familiar to him, he starts to struggle, not wanting to be trapped in the small tank again. He finally got back the strength that he lost from before because of a tank that size, he can’t go back in it again. He won’t. He doesn’t want to. Not again. Not again.

“Lance...Lance please open your eyes.”

Lance does as he’s asked, he hadn’t even realized that he had closed them in the first place. He also realizes that he isn’t being carried anymore but instead has been layed back down onto the platform. Leaning over him, Shiro gives him a sweet smile and a patient smile while petting his forehead in a repetitive and soothing motion, letting Lance get his full bearings before talking to him again.

“You with me buddy?” Lance nods his head, “that’s good. You got pretty freaked out, it was the tank wasn’t it? It reminds you too much of before.” Lance nods again, ashamed that he let something like that get the best of him. “ hey, there’s no need to feel bad because something scared you. That’s just fine. But we need to get you into the tank. The enclosure were taking you to is in a different building, and trying to carry you like Hunk and I did last time isn’t going to be good for you. But I promise you, there’s going to be no lid, and I’ll be right next to you the whole way.” Lance can only nod, focusing more on keeping himself calm, looking back and forth between Shiro and the small tank.

He wouldn’t be enclosed.   
Shiro is going to be right there the whole way.  
It won’t be forever.

He repeats this in his head as the nods for them to continue, Shiro and Hunk lifting him up once again and slowly placing him in the movable tank. Hunk pulls his hands away, Shiro following to do the same. But Lance stops him, grabbing onto one of his hands not wanting the touch to leave. Shiro waits a few seconds to see if Lance will let go, but Lance isn’t going to, he doesn’t want to be left alone in the tank. Shiro nods in understanding, and while he does get one of his hands free, he leaves the prosthetic inside the water for Lance to hold. Allura and Hunk begin to unfold the black sheet, to which Lance gives Shiro an uneasy questioning look. “It’s just a black blanket to put over the tank to keep the light out. We have to go outside to get to the building, and while the aquarium isn’t open to the public yet, the sun is out and it would be way too bright for your eyes to handle.” Shiro explains, helping to calm some of Lance’s uneasiness about it. Hunk and Allura drape the blanket over the top of the tank, blunging Lance into almost complete darkness, the only glimmer of light from his bioluminescence and where Shiro’s hand is still inside the tank, giving Lance comfort in the small space.

The trek to the new tank ended much too soon, at least too soon for Lance to figure out how to actually interact with his new ‘roommates’ as Shiro had once called them. But soon enough, the Blanket was pulled back and while the lights were a bit bright orm what Lance has gotten used to, he was thankful that he could finally see where he was.

From the looks of it, they were on a platform much like the one back in his tank, except this one had cascading stairs lowering into the water and while LAnce couldn’t completely see down into the water from his vantage point, he could see the way the water was always moving never sitting silently like in his tank. It only meant that whoever else was down there was already wide awake and probably waiting for him to enter as well.

Shiro, who still hasn’t moved his hand from Lance’s motions for Coran and Hunk, who each take their cue and lifts Lance out of the constricting tank. With Shiro leading the way, the others carry Lance down the stairs and into the water, Lance still gripping onto Shiro’s prosthetic as an anchor from the anxiety of everything about today. But much sooner than he would like, he’s placed down into the water and with a wave from Hunk and a few light promises to come see him soon, Lance is sitting on the last stair with Shiro and whoever else is down there. He knows that Shiro told him their names, but this just feels like before when he was alone. It was them and him, so similar and yet worlds different from one another. It’s how it’s always been for Lance, his world and theirs; never meant to cross into one another. Except now they aren’t just crossing, they’re mixing together and Lance can’t tell if it will all be okay, or if it’s going to explode in his face.

But Shiro stayed by him, holding his hand for as long as he could. It could have been minutes it could have been hours, Lance isn’t quite sure.

“You know, to actually meet them, you have to go down and say hi.” Shiro says, a lilt in his voice trying to get Lance to laugh out some of his nervousness. It doesn't really do the job, but Lance is thankful for Shiro at least trying to make him feel better.

“I know you're scared, but they aren't going to hurt you.”

Shiro tries to loosen his grip on Lance, but Lance only holds on tighter, going so far as to wrap his tail around Shiro’s midsection to keep from being shaken off.

“Lance….” grumpily, Lance unwinds his tail from Shiro, finally sinking into the water below them. Shiro gives him a squeeze of the hand and a small kiss on the forehead with a whispered promise of coming back as soon as he's able to, and then he too lets go of Lance and walks off towards the doors. Leaving Lance all alone.

Well, not completely alone. But it sure does feel the same as it.

Hesitantly, Lance sinks down into the waters, noticing how much more rocks and planets there are here as well as many more adequate hiding places for Lance if he needs to. One particular looking cave catches his fancy right away, but he doesn't go immediately to it, trying to keep every sense locked on staying aware of any movements in the water. Although, now that only consisted of his ears and his eyes. It’s so blinding not being able to sense the movements in the water from his spines, he sometimes even forgets that they don’t work anymore, expecting for that signal to his senses that something was closing in on him.  
Just like right now.

Lance shrieks when something rams into him, wrapping their arms around his midriff and shoving him farther into the water. Lance spins around, bucking about like crazy to get it off. He doesn’t want to get hurt. He didn’t want to fight. He can’t. He can’t go through that pain again.Not again.

Never again. Never again. Never again.

Lance digs his nails into the flesh wrapped around him and hears a cry of pain, smirking in success as he’s let go and immediately speeds into the cave he had spotted earlier, curling in on himself and keeping out of the filtered light that peaks in at the opening. He’s breathing to fast , he knows it, but he can’t seem to get just enough air through his gills. He squeezes his arms around his stomach checking for any wounds or pain. Instinctively he wraps his tail around himself, keeping the plates of armor in front of himself for protection from any other types of attack.

He's not sure how long he was stuck in his head, the outside world seemingly nonexistent as he tries to figure out how to get his lungs to work with him again. The constant thoughts circling around and around in his head, he almost missed the movement at the front of the small cave. It was the bright colors that caught him off guard and got him to slowly let his surrounds filter back into his senses.

The mass of bright colors slowly gains clarity and form, and it's no longer a shimmering blob but a young mermaid, keeping herself as still as possible as Lance shifts his body ever so cautiously, wary of anything she might try to do. He takes in the odd starch White that's wrapped around her arms, and sees that she's carrying something in her hands as well.

“Um….” It's obvious that she's scared. Lance has seen it time and time again, ever since he was just a little thing trying to survive the midnight zones terrors and abominations. Some would say he's one of them. And yet this girl doesn't back down, while her form is stiff and just as high strung on nerves as his, she isn't backing down or cowering away from him.

“I….I'm sorry.”

Lance can't help but jolt up a bit in surprise.

“I shouldn't have tackled you from behind like that, Shiro had told me that I had to be careful and be patient and to let you see me before anything else, but I just got so excited to see someone just like me and yet not, and I forgot. So...I'm sorry for scaring you like that.”

Lance is pretty sure if he knew how to talk right now, he still wouldn't know what to say. This mermaid, who doesn't even know his name, is apologizing to him. This wasn't exactly how he thought his first real interaction with his own kind would go, but it's better than some of the scenarios he pictured in his head.

He looks back down to the white bandages-right, that's what they're called-that adorn her wrists and forearms, remembering suddenly about how he digged his sharp nails into those same arms that had had him trapped. Lance can't help but feel guilty that he had hurt her, especially now that he knows that she wasn't trying to attack him at all. It takes some conscious effort, but Lance uncurls himself from the end of the cave and slowly makes his way towards her, hyper aware of every flutter of fins and gils as she waits patiently yet stiff at the entrance, a curious and watchful gaze at his every move. When he reaches out towards her hands, she seems to snap back to reality and quickly holds out what is in her hands. A few fish; she must have brought it here for him as some sign of good faith.

Or to lure you into a false sense of security the primal voice inside of him whispers, but he shoos the intrusive thought away, reminding himself that he doesn't need to worry about being hunted or having to fight. He's safe here. Hopefully.

Lance decides to bypass the offering and curls his fingers around the bandages, making sure to keep his hands light and careful. It doesn't stop her from flinching though, but she doesn't pull away from his touches. He feels along each arm, seeing as she flinches here and there whenever he puts too much pressure on some points. He wants to apologize, but unsure of how to get his point across to her. He racks his brain, trying to think of some way to show both his forgiveness and his guilt.

Wait. He remembers one action, when he was stuck with that awful man Sendak, maybe he could do that. Lance leans closer to the injuries and as gentle as he can, he presses his lips to each arm making sure that both were still unharmed by his act. He leans away and notices the bright red blush that has spread across her face, opening and closing her mouth trying to find any sort of response. Did he do it wrong? Did it have a different meaning than what he thought? Did he just ruin his chance of gaining her friendship?!

An abrupt and wholesome laugh breaks them out of their embarrassed stare off, getting both of them to turn and look at the new person hanging back a few feet from them. This one looks surprisingly like the girl, Lance could have easily thought they were brother and sister if it weren’t for the fact that their tails are vastly different from each other. Where the girl’s tail was constantly shifting between yellow and orange, bright blue spots and lines decorating all along her tail and fins, his tail was broad stripes of black and white, yellow peeking in and out along his fins, but closer to his tail, the colors and just the look of it seems….off.

“Shut up Matt!”

“Oh come on, how could I not laugh when you’re making that face!” the man quips back, getting the girl in front of Lance to pout at the Matt who only seems to keep laughing at the little ones antics. Matt swims closer to the two, his tail moving in an odd way that makes Lance almost want to cringe.twisted and knotted scars making themselves known with each movement. It seems like he’s not the only person who has seen the darker side of the human race. With a bright smile, Matt holds out his hand to Lance, who gingerly takes it.

“Hello, I’m Matt, and this is Katie although everyone calls her Pidge-”

“Matt!”

“Only saying the truth sis. Anyways, you must be Lance. Shiro and Hunk have talked a lot about you, it’s glad to finally get a face to the name. And again, so sorry about before, you’re the first deep sea mermaid we’ve seen and Pidge isn’t the best at controlling herself whenever someone new comes around.” Pidge smacks Matt’s tail at the comment, but there’s no real aggression behind it. Not when she’s smiling just as bright as he is. The cheerfulness surrounding these two is contagious as Lance can’t help but to slightly smile back at them, most of his worries or fears melting away.

“Well, just so you know this area of the tank is hidden from the public, so you don’t have to worry about anyone watching you over here, and whenever you do feel like maybe coming out and swimming around we’ll be right there. Shiro didn’t tell us much about your past, but i can understand f for the first couple of days you just want to hide out here. I was the same way. Pidge and I will be just right out there-” Matt points to a passageway which Lance can only assume leads out to…..there. “So we’ll be close by if you need us.”

Pidge swims up and hangs off of Matt’s shoulder, a joyful expression that could make some of the bioluminescent fish Lance has grown up with go to shame. She adds on “ And we’ll be coming in and out throughout the day, so you won’t be completely alone all the time!” Lance can merely nod, a little overwhelmed with everything that’s

happened in just the last few minutes.

With that, the two of them leave Lance to process and to explore the new tank without any prying eyes on him. While it is a bit smaller than his previous tank, it’s full of structures and plant life that could entertain any guppy for months on end. And Lance has to remind himself that this is only one part of the tank, the rest of it is out there. Maybe when all the people leave, he’ll check out the rest of tank and see if it’s just as great as this part.

Just like they said, Matt and Pidge filtered in and out throughout the day, always making sure to check on him and to show him little quirks both about the new surrounds and about themselves. It’s just so…..mind-boggling that these two mermaids who don’t know so much about him are so open and friendly to him. They aren’t judging him about the scars and the armor plating or the bioluminescent. They aren't scared of him at all. It’s not that he wanted them to be scared, but it’s surprising to get such a different reaction after years upon years of the same scared looks.

Maybe this whole sharing a tank thing might not be so bad.

~~~~~~

Nope. Never mind. He takes it back. This is the worst.

Ok, maybe not the worst, Lance has gone through things ten times worse than this, but it doesn't make this any less...awkward. Right now Lance has found himself in the middle of some sort of pile of scales and fins and two very huggy sleeping bodies. Lance can't figure out if this some sort of specific thing to them or if this is something else he's never really had before. Is this something that families and pods do? Pile on top of each other when they go to sleep?

Lance isn't sure what to do, he isn't used to so much physical contact and is itching to get out from under them, but he also doesn't want to disturb the two sleeping mermaids. After hours of constant bickering to himself, he couldn't stand the weight on him anymore. It's too constricting, he can't move with them on him like this, he can't be ready to swim as fast as possible if there's danger. As carefully as he can, he somehow manages to get himself free of the sleep pile and swim off to the winding structures that Pidge had told him earlier were full of little nooks and crannies.

While they weren't the most comfortable spots, they were definitely better than that pile of scales he found himself in. This is going to a lot more work than Lance thought.

A whole lot more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the first couple of days getting used to the area and avoiding sleeping in that overwhelming pile the other two always do, Matt and Pidge finally got the hint that sleeping like that was foreign and uncomfortable for Lance. Thankfully they did stop dropping g themselves over him, but rather decided along with his consent to get him accustomed to ‘pod behavior’ as Matt had put it.

Whenever They lay down to rest, they no longer lay on top of him, but rather lay next to him usually giving him a some space for comfort. Both of them, Pidge mostly, will drape their tail fin over his, sometimes even getting him to drape his across their own. It's comforting for them to know he's still their will getting him used to the small constant touches. They'll also lightly wrap their tails around him to get his attention if he'll start to overthink things or if they want to show him something.

Before Lance knows it a week has gone by and he has even started to do the same gestures to the two as well.

But he also knows that sooner or later, he has got to face his fear and go out into the viewing area. He’d much rather want it to be later (never would be perfect, but even Lance knows that that's just running away from the problem, and he's never been one to run away.)

It's not until one day when Pidge starts to drag him to that area of the tank that Lance realizes just how bad his fear is.

“Lance…..Lance. It's okay. I promise! It's close to closing time so there’s barely anybody even out there, and most of them are people that work here.”

Lance can only nod numbly, unaware of how much he's actually shaking in Pidge’s hands. She squeezes his hands in reassurance, slowly leading him towards the opening.

“And I'll be beside you the entire time! I'll talk your ears off about anything and everything, like-”

Lance couldn't hear her, all he could hear was the muffled sounds of humans laughing at him through the glass. He stiffens up, afraid that if he'll move to much he will only make the small container that more small. He doesn't know when he lets go of her hand, he doesn't realize he's swimming away, the only thing that is ringing in his mind is that he has to hide; he needs to get away before he's captured. Before he's put on display again.   
He curls up in the cave, making himself as small as possible so that I one can find him and pull him back into that tiny container.

He’s not sure how long he stayed like that, hoping that Shiro will come and calm him down and reassure him that everything is fine. Now that Lance thinks about it, he hasn't seen much of Shiro since he was moved into this area; what with exploring the new tank and getting to know Matt and Pidge, it's been an entire week since Lance has talked with Shiro. Sure he sees him whenever he brings food, but usually he's called away as soon as he's done, not leaving any time to talk with Lance. He wished Shiro was here right now, he'd know what to do to help Lance calm down. Lance slowly comes out of his memories, feeling something warm and heavy laying on top of him, another form somehow has gotten under his head and was carding their fingers through his hair. It was nice; it felt safe instead suffocating, feeling the slap breathing on top of him matching the movements of the hand in Lance’s hair. When he looks up, he sees that it's Matt whose tail he's laying on, which means that Pidge is the one that's acting as some sort of shield to the outside world.

“Hey, glad to have you back.” Matt calmly says, keeping his voice low and soothing as to not startle Lance any further. “Do you feel better?”

Lance slowly nods his head, the fringes of his panic attack still lingering on the edges of his nerve ends. “That's good. If you still need some time to calm down, we’ll be right here with you.” Lance nods again against Matt’s tail, the feeling of the scales against his cheek grounding him to reality. They stay like that for some time, letting him soak up his surroundings and get a better grip on himself.

“Lance?” He looks down towards Pidge, exhaustion from his panic attack making his movements slower. She looks up at him, colorful tail laying side by side to his own, making his own darker colors seem that much more unusual. “You really wanted Shiro right then, didn't you?” Lance blinks owlishly at the questioning look in her eyes, something that he's gotten quite used to seeing with her whenever she asked questions about the lower levels of the sea or whenever some new book was brought to her by Coran and Hunk, but he's never seen her curious gaze look so disheartened before. How did she know?

“You said his name.” He looks up towards Matt, surprised by his words. He…….he spoke? He actually said something?! The first thing he said was Shiro’s name? Lance can't help but feel giddy, the joy of actually using his voice just too great to contain! He actually said Shiro’s name! “It was really garbled, and it was pretty hard to understand, but once we figured it out it made a lot of sense. But Lance….” Matt shifts around so that Lance can look at him easily without straining so hard, “I-no, we are so happy that you trust Shiro, especially after what must have happened to you, and we would never want you to regret trusting him…..but, you can't put every one of your troubles on him.” Lance is taken aback by what Matt just said. Lance doesn't want to stop trusting and going to Shiro; he was one of the first people to not be scared of him, to not try and control him and show some twisted form of dominance over him.   
“I'm not saying that you have to stop going to him, I’m just trying to-”

“What my brother is trying, and failing, to say is that you don't have to just rely on Shiro to get through this. We care about you too, and we want to help you. And not just us! Hunk is a super good listener, even if you don't talk, he just seems to know what you need weirder it's a book or a hug. And I'm sure that Allura and Coran want to help you as well. You have this whole group of people, mers and humans, who want to help you get better. So don't be afraid to rely on us too. Okay?”

Lance couldn't tell if he was crying or not, but with the way his eyes were burning with tears was enough. He isn't sure how else to show how much her words touched him except by hugging her back as much as he can, afraid that if he let go she might take it all back. He just couldn't stop himself. If his is what it was like having a pod….he was glad he could make a pod with these two; and the humans who have made this possible for him.

That night, when Shiro came to bring dinner to them, Lance said his name to him. It was poorly pronounced and Lance is sure he mangled up every syllable, but the look on Shiro’s face was enough to know how much it meant to him.

Shiro had gone to say that he would get learning book for him to practice with, and Matt was excited to help teach Lance how to speak. The joy and excitement was contagious as Pidge even suggested some of her favorite books from when she was just a guppy living in another aquarium. Lance could only smile with pride and eagerness at the thought of him actually being able to speak back to Shiro and ask Pidge questions and to be able to say so many things.   
He couldn't wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last few days have been, at least in Lance’s opinion, hard earned and rewarding.

Any chance that Shiro got, he would come by and help Lance learn how to speak words. They had all agreed to start off on the most simplistic words and the alphabet and work up from their, and it was so exciting to sound out each word along with Shiro, although he butchered every single one of them.

And whenever Shiro wasn't there, Matt and Pidge would drill him with the words he could speak. Lance can proudly say that thanks to their help, he can Shiro’s, Pidge’s and Matt’s name, as well as his own. There are a few words, such as yes and no, and other important words for Lance to learn right away. It has been hard on him though, his voice so unused to actually being used that whenever he does talk his voice is rough and warbled and when he uses it too much his voice becomes too weak to work anymore. It isn't exactly the best way to learn how to talk, but Lance can't find it in himself to complain. He's just so happy that with each word he learns how to say, the more he's able to talk to Shiro and his new pod.

But right now, none of that is on mind. Instead he's in front of hat tunnel again, Pidge by his side holding his hand in encouragement.

“ I-I-I-”

“It's okay Lance,” Pidge pats his hand, “remember, most of the aquarium is empty and it's going to close in like thirty minutes. The only people that were probably going to see is the janitors.” She reminds him for the third time.

Lance nods along, knowing that she's probably right. But that idea of people watching him and mocking him is still holding him back from taking that stroke forward in his recovery. But Pidge doesn't push or pull him towards it, she stays right by his side and lets him make the decision for himself. Lance takes in a couple of deep breaths through his gills, letting the movement of freshwater remind him that he isn't back there, he's where he wants to be.

Slowly, he moves forward, Pidge right by his side as he gradually makes his way into the open tank.

It was much like the other side of the tank, much wider though, it almost seemed endless. There were many plants growing up pillars and decorating the sand below; structures look as though they are growing straight from the ground as well. Holes decorate the back wall as well as the pillars, some of them almost hidden by the plant life. The lighting was considerably darker than what Lance had expected for two day zone mermaids; it could be for him, or if it's because it's getting closer to night, either way it was easy on his eyes.

All in all it's an amazing tank and he can understand why the Matt and Pidge spend hours at a time out here.

But for right now, Lance isn't taking any chances. He hides himself behind Pidge’s body, although he knows that isn't really going to help much, since his body is at least three times larger and longer than hers will probably ever be, but it's a small comfort that he's not willing to give up right now.

“Hey, Lance, Look.”

Hesitantly, Lance peeks up over Pidge’s head, and looks out towards the glass wall overlooking the darken pathway. The empty pathway.

“See; nobody’s there. It's just you and me. You're completely in control here no one is here to see you unless you want them to.”

Lance slowly starts to make himself relax more, and noticing just how much he was squeezing her hand when he finally readjusts his grip.   
“S-sorry.”

“It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world; but it's not like I can actually get on you about that. You took a big step right now.”

Lance nods, although still feels bad for the pain he caused. Gently, he rubs at her palm, hoping that it helps relieves some of the ache he caused.

When Lance looks back out through the glass, double checking to make sure that no one is there watching them, he sees a movement off in the corner of the glass and instantly freezes up. Lance doesn't waste anytime and immediately drags himself and Pidge to the nearest pillar to hide behind. Even with all of her squirming, he uses his larger body to keep her still enough to hide from whatever human was lurking around.

“Lance….Lance! It's okay! I promise! It's just Mr. Peters, the janitor I was telling you about before. He's a super sweet, old man.” Pidge assures him, whacking him with her hands half heartedly, hoping to get him to let go without actually hurting him. Lance looks back and forth from where he saw the movement and Pidge, trying so hard to find it in himself to believe her. After minutes of debate with himself, he takes in a calming breath, and tentatively loosens his hold her, letting her take a few strokes away before rounding around the pillar and heading towards the glass. By now, the man is in clear view of the glass and with a few taps from Pidge hitting the glass he turns around and is waving at her happily, the light from the tank dancing on his face as he smiles to her.

He doesn't take any chances though and stays behind his pillar as Pidge animatedly talks with the janitor. Lance can't help but be cautious, it's what he's always done. He knows he doesn't have to be any more, but old habits die hard.

“Lance!” Pidge calls to him, getting him to stop silently glaring at the old man at the window. “Come on over! Meet Mr. Peters, this is great way for you to start getting to know the other staff here.” Shrinking more behind the pillar, Lance shakes his head frantically, unsure if he's ready to actually meet other people. Unfortunately, Pidge doesn't seem to get it and starts to make her way back over to him. When she tries to take his hand in her own, Lance pulls away, afraid that if he does go over there and something we're to trigger him, he might have another full blown panic attack right on the spot. He doesn't want to feel like that again. He can't, he just ca-

“Lance. Please. Trust me.” Pidge asks, finally snatching his hand in between hers. He looks down at their hands and then back up to her face, looking for any sort of lie in her words. But he doesn't find any, he never does. He gives a curt nod and lets her lead him out into the open.

The closer they get to the glass, Lance makes sure to show off every one of his spines and armor plates to try and scare off the human before he actually had to face him. The janitor didn't seem to fazed by him though, unfortunately, and now Lance was hiding behind his very small friend as she waves back at the man.

“Mr. Peters, this is Lance, the new mermaid I was telling you about. He's really nervous around new people though. Lance, say hi to Mr. Peters.” Pidge prods at him, taking a cheap shot by squeezing his side to make him jerk out of her and out from behind her and in clear view of the man.

“Lance, say hi to Mr. Peters.” Pidge insists, trying to pull off an innocent look as if she did nothing wrong. Lance scowls at her before redirecting his glare towards the old man waiting patiently at the window. He freezes. He doesn't know what to do, he's in clear view of this human, what if he's like those from before? What if-

Pidge takes hold of his hand, snapping him out of his head and looking down to the joined hands. He looks back up to her and sees how relaxed she is, she isn't hiding or worried about anything except about him. She lifts up his hand and starts to wave it towards the old man, who smiles to them, his eyes crinkling as he kindly waves back to them. Lance doesn't take much time to get it of her grip and back to hiding behind her once again, but she doesn't seem to mind as much this time, carrying on talking to Mr. Peters through the glass. When he finally walks off, Pidge takes ahold of Lance’s hand again and thankfully leads him back to the private area of the tank, although he's very sure he lead the rest of the way once he realized where they were going.

Once they are back inside the safe area and lance had time to calm down, Pidge didn't hesitate to tell him how great he was, facing his fear.

“That was great Lance! Not only did you go out there, but you didn't outright threaten Mr. Peters! You even let yourself be seen.” Lance gives a glare at Pidge, “okay okay, so you had some help with that part, but at least you didn't run away straight away! Trust me, we've had another mermaid literally hiss at him and slam their tail against the glass before they ran off. Compared to that, you did great!” Pidge compliments him, swimming around him before moving on towards her adoptive brother. Matt had explained it to him during his first couple of days with them; how Matt was the only resident mermaid here, after his tail had been caught in a boat’s rotors. Matt didn’t go into much detail about it but Lance got the gruesome picture. It was after about six months that they introduced him to Katie, a young mermaid who was born in captivity (to which Matt had to explain that it meant she was born in an aquarium, and not in actual captivity) whose original aquarium was shut down and was moved here, and sharing the tank had helped both of them. Katie had someone to call a brother and someone to mimic and learn from, and Matt had someone who he could actually call a sister and cheered him on through his intensive physical therapy and made him cherish life like he never did before. They were brother and sister, in everything but blood. And Lance can see it as clear as night; how they will check in with one another, how Matt will make sure that Pidge has had her fill first before eating anything, every interaction with each other screams brother sister brother sister. Lance wishes he had something like what they have when he was young guppy. But to be able to have some of those interactions with them, it’s something that he feels blessed to have.

 

It feels like it’s been forever since Lance has been able to spend any one on one time with Shiro; it’s not like he hasn’t seen him art all, they meet all the time, with his speech lessons and feeding times, they see each other multiple times a day.  
But never alone.  
Either Matt or, more specifically Pidge, will join them and start up conversations with Shiro and it turns from ‘Shiro and Lance’ time to group time. Lance loves spending time with Matt and Pidge, but he also wants to spend time with just Shiro.

But finally, after some very desperate looks towards Matt and a soft “please?” Matt gets the hint and corrals Pidge away from them and back into the pool, leaving Lance and Shiro sitting up on the metal platform, Lance’s tail fins creating ripples in the water as it lazily moves back and forth. It’s silent between them for a few minutes between, lance couldn’t decide if it was a stifling or a comfortable silent his mind racing back and forth trying to figure out what to say to him. Well, he knows what he wants to say, but thinking it and saying are two very different things. Thankfully, Shiro decides to talk first.

“Lance, I…. I want to apologize to you. Again.” lance gives him a questioning look, confused about what Shiro did wrong.

“I should never have assumed that you would have been on board with everything i was talking to you about, and i freaked you out and almost lost your trust. I almost lost you.” Shiro places his hand atop of Lance’s, his thumb lightly tracing the crease of webbing between his fingers, “I should have brought it up to you slowly and much more calmly than I did. I should have given you more details and reinforce that you could change your mind at any time. but , i guess i was scared that you would change your mind and would have to watch you leave. I was selfish and excited and scared all at once and-”

“Shi...oe...Shi-ro” Lance quietly says, stopping Shiro’s babbling as he looks up at Lance, giving him his full attention. “I...was ma-d….and sc-scared. Bu-t now I’m ha-hap-py. I f-for..” Lance stumbles over the last word, trying to get his voice and his mouth to make the word that he knows Shiro needs to hear. He stops and takes a breath, and retries “f-for-gu-give you.” he looks up into Shiro’s eyes and is startled to see tears prickling around his eyes and trailing down his cheeks. Did i say it wrong? Was that the wrong word? Oh no, did i insult him? Shiro pulls him into a hug suddenly, jostling Lance from his thoughts as he whispers “thank you.” repeatedly into his damp hair, their hands still entwined with each other. “I promise that I will do my best to make sure that nothing will ever hurt you again. Even me. Especially me.” they stay like that, Shiro whispering into his hair while Lance cautiously wraps the end of his tail around Shiro’s foot that hangs off the catwalk, careful of the sharp scales that decorate the tip of his tail that turns into his tailfin. Lance listening to every heartbeat, every breath, and every word that comes from Shiro. Lance decides that now is the best chance to tell Shiro.

“Shi-ro?”

“Yes Lance?”

Lance take in a deep breath, trying to muster up enough courage to say the next three words that he’s been practicing constantly to make sure he won’t stutter over them when he tells Shiro. Now will probably be his one chance to say this, he can’t back out now.

“I love you.”

He can hear the way Shiro’s heartbeat pick up quickly as well as the sharp breath he just took. The only thing he wishes he could hear is Shiro’s mind, wanting to know if his feelings are returned or not. Every second of silence felt like an eternity to Lance, his anxiety creeping up along his numb spine as all of the worries start to get to him.

“Lance…” Shiro breathes out his name, causing Lance to burrow his head further into his shoulder, feeling the fabric beneath him absorbing the water that still clung to his hair and face. “Lance...please, look up.” lance shakes his head against SHiro’s shoulder, terrified of the rejection that must be happening right now. Shiro takes his metal hand and places it just under Lance’s chin and tenderly lifts Lance’s head so that Lance has no choice but to face him head on. He knows he could easily pull away, nothing is forcing him to look at him, but he could never find it in himself to refuse Shiro. Nervously opening his eyes, searches Shiro face for any sign of disgust or declination. What he wasn’t expecting was Shiro kissing away the tear tracks on his cheeks, making sure that every stray tear that escapes is quickly wiped away with his lips. Lance tries to think of a word, his mouth opening and closing in utter confusion until Shiro’s mouth landed on his making any words that would have come out practically nonexistent.

Its gentle and hesitant at first, both nervous of hurting the other or going too fast for the other. He can feel the way Shiro’s chapped lips catches on his own. The way he tentatively runs his tongue against Lance’s bottom lip, silently asking for entry, and still holding that wisp of shyness, letting Lance decide on how far he can go. And he wants nothing more than to let him and find out just what he was planning to do, but his own fear of hurting Shiro with his teeth keeps his mouth shut. Shiro easily takes Lance’s choice as it is and doesn’t try to get him to open up, but it does nothing to stop their kiss from deepening, any traces of their previous timidity washed away by ripples of water beneath them. Lance can feel the emotions, the silent decrees with each shifted position and gasp of breath they take before going colliding back together telling Lance everything he needed to hear.

I love you too.

I’m so glad I got to meet you.

I love everything about you.

I love you.

I love you.

_________________________

It’s been six months since he moved into Matt and Pidge’s tank. It’s been six incredible months of learning what it means to be in a pod, and how to read and speak. It’s almost too good to be true, and many times when nightmares of…before plague his sleep, it feels like it was all just a dream, and he’s still trapped back in that tiny prison of glass. It can be so hard to figure out what is the dream and real life, and many times in this battle against his mind, he has regretfully tried to hurt Pidge and Matt in his hell dream induced rage. And yet, they never hold it against him. They never hesitate to approach him when he finally comes out it; never hesitates to hold him as he apologizes over and over for whatever scratches or bruises he caused them. And at the end of the day, when the place is closed to people and Lance gets settled down for sleep in his cave, neither of them hesitate to curl up with him. Always with pidge curled up against his chest, her tail draped over his while Matt wraps himself around the both of them, even though Lance is longer than him.

It’s become a welcoming feeling to wake up to, that safe warm feeling of the weight of their tails on top of his; being able to hear their slow and calming heartbeats as they continue to sleep.

But today, Lance hears something else in his semiconscious daze. It’s not like when Shiro calls for them for feeding time, or Coran and Hunk splashing the water around to get their attention whenever Matt or Lance needs to have their usual inspection. This wasn’t even like the sounds of the crowd that would pass by and chatter at their tank or of their children oooh-ing and aaah-ing at Matt and Pidge. These sounds were loud and sharp, and that fact that it echoed into their cozy cave and woke him up, it must be far louder out there. Lance feels Matt squirm awake beneath his head, most likely woken up by the same sounds.

“What the?” He grumbles out, rubbing at his eye as he slowly picks himself up from their warm pile and lazily swim out towards the chanting. Lance following close behind him, making sure to be as careful as possible so that Pidge isn’t disturbed from her heavy sleep. Trailing behind Matt, like a protective shadow, Lance follows him to the short tunnel to the open tank and stops just short of leaving the safety of the unviewable tank staying as tense as ever, ready to shoot out from hiding to protect his friend at any moment, watching as Matt continues on into the open. The chanting and the harsh voices louder and more identifiable than before, he watches as Matt stops dead in his tracks, looking out of the tank and onto whatever was making all the noise.

Lance can’t tell what’s going through Matt’s mind, but it’s obvious that he is also very tense about the situation, and after taking a few steadying breaths and gathering up as much courage as he can; Lance moves out from the tunnel and makes his way towards Matt, keeping to the shadows and hiding behind anything he can get close to, his senses on as high of an alert as he can make them. Looking out of the glass wall separating him and the humans, he sees what looks like a hoard of people, some carrying signs and others yelling at people who try to come near the tank. Off in the distance, he can see Shiro and Allura trying to talk to them, but the large school of people were so loud and yelling that he couldn’t even focus on how desperate their faces looked.

“Lance? What are you doing out here?” Lance looks away from the yelling crowd and focuses back on Matt, remembering why he actually put himself out in the open like this. Lance doesn’t hesitate to move closer to Matt, still keeping close to the ground where most of the larger items he can hide behind are, glancing back to the glass repeatedly, anxiety taking hold of his every action. When he’s facing Matt again, he gives him a worried glance between him and the angry crowd and Matt quietly nods back to him, leading him towards one of the larger hideaways in the tank; much like in his own tank, it was a wall of interweaving tunnels that, unlike his own tunnels, have little peepholes that if they wish they could peek out into other exhibits in the aquarium, give the people a peek at them. Thankfully, Matt doesn’t lead him by any of them as he leads them to a larger tunnel where they can both comfortably rest and talk.

“Those people yelling out there are protesters; people who think that the aquarium are keeping us locked up in here for people’s entertainment.” Matt explains, chuckling a bit and losing some of the tension from before at Lance’s confused and disbelieving face. Quietly, Lance rebuffs “but they aren’t.” “Exactly. But some people don’t see that, they only see what they want to see and never consider that what they believe isn’t the whole truth. I can’t exactly say that I’m angry at them though” Matt says, getting Lance to give him a questioning look, “they’re just trying to do what they think is right for us; even if it is misguided and under false information. They don’t hurt anyone, they’re just sort of a nuisance.” Matt further explains, unconsciously running his hand through Lance’s hair to help calm him down. Lance hadn’t even realized just how tense and anxious he was; he did just swim through the open tank during the aquarium’s most busiest time in front of a bunch of angry yelling humans. He was terrified of try and make the trip back to their hidden tank, and could feel himself starting to hyperventilate. He tries to calm himself down from completely freaking out, but he’s not really helping himself, only furthering his spiral into a full blown panic attack.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hey. Lance, I need you to focus on me, okay?” Matt says in such a calm manner; how can he be calm? They’re going to have to pass by that angry crowd, how- how can lance make it?! How- how “Lance. Look at me.” Matt gently pulls Lance’s head out of his hands and makes him look up at Matt’s calm and patient face. “There you are. Okay, focus on my breathing. Okay? Take a deeeeep breath in.” Matt take in a deep breath, urging Lance to do the same; his isn’t nearly as deep as he wished it was, filled with tears that he didn’t realize were falling and hiccups. “And out.” Lance once again copies Matt, letting out a jittery breath and watching the air bubbles trickle from their mouths. Matt doesn’t stop leading Lance through breathing, switching back and forth from his mouth to his gills and back, watching as Lance does the same until he can finally take in a full breath and release it evenly just like him, never once letting go of him, giving him something to hold onto and ground himself throughout the attack.

“Thank you, Matt.” Lance whispers out, his voice a bit hoarse, but otherwise steady and even.

“It’s no problem Lance. Do you want to wait in here until the protesters leave?” Matt asks. Lance wants to say yes, to just wait until the place is closed to the public and no one but the few works that he’s met and slowly befriended are the only people to see him at all. But then he thinks back to Shiro and Allura; how much they were trying and unsuccessfully calm down that huge wave of protesters, how desperate they were trying to go against such a large enemy. Lance knows hat feeling, having to fight something that’s larger and more aggressive than you are, trying to just survive all by yourself against those who wish to tear you apart. That was his life for years. But this isn’t like those times. He isn’t alone anymore, these people are creatures trying to eat him alive. He doesn’t have to fight this battle alone. And Shiro and Allura aren’t alone either.

Lance shakes his head, much to the surprise of Matt and asks, “I want to help Shiro. How do we help?” Matt owlishly blinks at him a few times before a sly smirk that could rival Pidge’s grows on his face. “I got an idea,but we’re gonna need Pidge….and you’re probably not going to like this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matt was right.

Lance doesn’t like this plan one bit.

But if he wanted to help Shiro, then he was going to have to take this leap of faith. Matt had left Lance in side the tunnels to go fetch Pidge and a few things from their personal tank, giving Lance a chance to try and build up whatever courage he has left in him to actually do this.

Matt’s plan was actually really simple in theory; he and Pidge do they’re usual thing -whatever that could be- and then Pidge would lead him out of the tunnels….out into the view of every parent, protester, and child there. Matt said that it would help Shiro and Allura gain some ground on the protesters, although Lance wasn’t completely sure how him being in the public would actually do that. But he could see the determination in Matt’s eyes, how sure he was of the plan, so Lance will do his best to help.

It was a couple of minutes before he heard the telltale signs of Matt and Pidge swimming around in the tank; probably doing so to gain people’s attention. And Lance focused on not bowing out from the plan. Or to pass out from the intense terror that was gripping his lungs.

And of course it was at that moment that Pidge came looking for him, pulling him along as they make their way out into the open. Just as they neared the end of the tunnel, Lance couldn’t get himself to move. He just stops dead, not even budging to Pidge’s insistent pulling.

“Lance.” He manages to tears his eyes away from the end of the tunnel and looks at Pidge’s face. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. It’ll be just like with Mr.Peters; me and Matt will be right by your side the whole time. You don’t have to look at anybody beyond the glass, none of them matter right now, okay. Nothing is going to hurt you, not while I have anything to say about it.” Pidge proclaims quietly, words only meant for him to hear, as she takes both of his hands into her own. Lance can’t help but feel a bit more at ease having one of them beside him as he begins to make his way out of the tunnel.

Pidge is the first to leave the tunnel, waiting just outside of it for Lance to make the move himself.

It felt as if time stood still as he slowly followed Pidge along. Even though he wasn’t looking out through the glass, he could feel each and every eye that was glued on him. It was completely silent as he made his way through the water, his size easily dwarfing Pidge and yet it was quite obvious that he was using her as a sort of shield from their eyes; even though he knew that it didn’t do much to hide him.

And all of a sudden the noises; the yelling and screaming of those protesters came crashing down on him, bringing him back to the fast pace of reality. Lance doesn’t hesitate to try and hide behind Pidge as she leads him through the tank, taking a hold of his hand in hers and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Once they reach Matt Lance circles around him, his plates and spines facing outward as a sort of protective wall against all of those piercing gazes and angry chanting. Matt doesn’t miss a beat and takes Lance’s free hand in his own and with the help of Pidge leads him back and forth through the tank, always giving him the option of leaving the tank whenever they pass by the tunnel. By now the yelling has quieted down considerably and with a sudden bout of curiosity, Lance looks out through the glass wall and immediately picks out Shiro from the crowd, standing tall and strong speaking to the mass of people, and while Lance can’t make out what he’s saying through the glass, he can see the determination and the intensity in his eyes and the way he never seems to stutter over himself. Shiro’s eyes glance up from the crowd and easily lock onto Lance’s, and it feels as though every fear that was plaguing his mind and body are erased in those few moments; Lance knows it won’t last forever, the fears and anxiety will come back as head strong as ever, but at this moment he knows that nothing is going to hurt him, not while Shiro is there.

After Shiro’s speech, the protesters seem to have lost their steam and within the next hour most of them have left and the few that have stayed don’t have he same heat behind their words like before. Lance doesn’t wait around long after either, quickly making his way back into the secluded tank, not stopping for a second to look behind him.

It wasn’t long after hat he heard the all too familiar plunk of one of the plastic rings dropping into the water, Lance takes his time to make his way to the surface, letting the calming movement of the water to pass through his gills, helping him relax enough so that he doesn’t appear as stressed as he felt. He breaches the water and isn’t surprised to see Shiro kneeling down on the catwalk, letting out a heavy breath once his eyes landed on Lance. Before Lance can even get a word out, Shiro hooks his arms under Lance and tries to hoist him up or of the water. Unfortunately for them, Lance is a lot heavier than Shiro can lift, let alone the fact that he’s twice as long as him, Shiro capsizes into the pool along with Lance laughing all the way with that brilliant smile of his, even as he crashes into the water.

Lance doesn’t waste a second and hooks his tail under Shiro’s thighs as he lifts him back up to the surface, letting Shiro practically sit on his tail as he catches his breath between deep chuckles. He wraps his arms loosely around his neck, the cold metal of his arm chilling to the touch but Lance can’t find it in him to care about that.

“Are you crazy?!” He asks, trying to do a once over of Shiro to make sure he didn’t get hurt in the fall.

“Me?! What about you? What you just did was probably the most terrifying and most bold thing anyone here has ever done.”Shiro quips back, his eyes looking, searching Lance’s face for some sort of explanation. “Why? Why did you put yourself out there like that?” Shiro asks, his eyes still searching for some kind of clue.

“Because...you needed help. I help. Right?”

Shiro face switches between so many emotions it was hard for Lance to keep track of; confusion, surprise, understanding, love, all of them cycling through his eyes. The only constant through them all being complete adoration. Shiro takes ahold of Lance’s head, cradling it gently between his hands as he plants quick kisses to his cheeks, eyelids, forehead, nose, and then finally landing on his mouth, whispering against his lips “how did I get so lucky to have you in my life?” Lance wraps his arms timidly around Shiro’s waist, not exactly sure what to do with himself. “That’s funny. I think the same thing every day.” Lance responds, planting his own chaste kiss on Shiro’s lips. Before they could really go any further, Allura and Hunk burst through the door and fish Shiro out of his arms, much to both of their protests. But watching Hunk fret over Shiro’s arm and lecturing him, and from the sound of it this wasn’t the first time, about taking care of his mechanical arm and how jumping into a pool is the exact opposite of that. Lance can’t help but snicker at them, watching from the edge of the walkway.

Allura takes a seat next to Lance, asking if he was alright, not so subtly checking to make sure that he wasn’t having an anxiety attack. All he could do was smile at the support and love that he’s been given since coming here; never regretting for a moment his decision.

 

To say that he was excited about today was an understatement. Lance was ecstatic!

His own exhibit is finally done after months and months of waiting; and now Shiro and Hunk and will be coming any minute to take Lance back to his own tank with fish and predators from his own home; don’t get him wrong, He will miss Matt and Pidge after spending almost half a year with them, and he actually dreads the moment when he’ll have to sleep by his lonesome once again, but he can feel the restless energy singing under his scales to be able to live like he used to; darkness that only the bioluminescent fish bring light to. To be able to hide in plain sight. A place he can truly call his home.

The sudden nudge at his arm shakes him out of his thoughts and brings his attention back to Pidge and Matt who both look at him with melancholy. Lance completely understood the feeling, he didn’t want to leave them as much as they didn’t want him to go, but he has to. He has to go back to his own tank and surroundings. Pidge gives him a sweet yet sad smile, “hopefully, we’ll see you again real soon. Allura is already talking about connecting different sections together for us to explore other exhibits.” She says, hope and bitter happiness lacing though her words. He looks between his new found friends, remembering how much they have helped him grow and learn about what it means to have a family, and before any of them know it, Lance is tugging both of them into a crushing hug trying to convey his thanks and tears all into one action. He can feel them wrap him into their hugs and can feel the warmth of their tears fall onto his shoulders, even in the warm water of the tank.

Their hug doesn’t last long before Shiro and Hunk arrive to take Lance back to his own tank, and with dad smiles and promises of meeting again as soon possible, he’s lifted out of Matt’s and Pidge’s tank and back into the much smaller tank for the trip. Just like before, Shiro slips his human hand under the sheet keeping the light and any prying eyes away and Lance gratefully takes it in his own, counting the faded and miniscule scars that pepper it to keep his mind off of the fact that it feels as though the glass walls around him are closing in on him.

Before they put Lance back into his own tank, Shiro leans down to him and places a chaste kiss to his hair and then with the help of Hunk, lower him down into the water gently, letting it slowly bathe him until he’s completely submerged.

Once he’s in the water, Lance can’t help but stretch out his fins, feeling the warm water flow around them in a welcoming embrace. He immediately goes towards the tunnels, checking to make sure that all of his things are still there; undisturbed by anything or anyone. He picks up the bracelet that lays on top of all his treasures and caresses the lettering. L a n c e. Lance. He sounds out each letter to himself, letting them fall off his tongue as he repeats it over and over to himself. He ties the bracelet around his tail and gives it a few flicks, making sure that it won’t come off, then moves to explore the new tank fully. And the only word that can come to explain what it feels like is….home.

The seaweed and corals have all grown since he last saw them, and the addition of other hideaways and secret passages hidden in the walls and the floor are incredible. And it’s not just that that takes his breath away; it’s how it all looks so lively than before, tiny fish swimming in schools around him and the ecosystem, the lights bouncing around in the water as the carry on with their own business. Every size and type of species he ever grew up with adorning every tank he can see, their lights flickering with every movement, as if the sky itself was living with him in his own corner of the universe. The joy and excitement of seeing so much life and peace in his tank; in his home filled him from tail to cheeks as a carefree smile grows on his lips. Not caring that Hjnk and Shiro are still there, he races through the tunnels; exploring each tank and pathway, laughter bubbling out from his lips as he dances and chases after schools, watching as their colors brighten under the black lights illuminating the hallway and tanks, giving off their own sort of glow.

By the time he returns to the surface, he’s taking in deep breaths and laughing in pure bliss with each exhale. Shiro sits down beside him with his own blooming smile and takes one of Lance’s hands into his own, watching the pure elation on his face as he takes in everything.

“Lance….”

Lance looks up to Shiro, giving him his undivided attention, watching as the the smile lines that peek out beside his eyes grow more and more with his smile.

“There’s one more surprise. Check out the ceiling in the hallway.” Shiro whispers, giving his hand a squeeze before Lance sinks back down into the water, curiously approaching the glass and squishing himself against it hoping to be able to look farther out into the aisle. But he doesn’t need to once he sees what Shiro was talking about.

Stars.

Stars decorate the roof of his exhibit, many of them glowing in the dark lighting, while some of the painted galaxies glow dimly against the black base coat. It was as if the night sky he had always dreamed of is finally letting itself be seen by him, every constellation and swirl is clear and crisp, wanting to show him everything they have to offer. Gently, as though he would break the image of it, he places his hand on the glass once again, tracing the stars and the images they hide against the oddly cold glass. This is all he’s ever wanted. To be able to see the stars like anyone else can. This place; his home….this is everything he’s wanted and more, and Lance is so glad that he decided to be apart of this family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure you’re ready for this, Lance? If not, I’m sure Matt won’t mind doing this-“

“I’m sure Shiro. And you said so yourself, everyone in there are kids; and I don’t mind kids watching me.” Lance soothes Shiro, watching as his mask blows bubbles out as he lets out a deep breath of air.

“yes, it will mostly be children in there; but this is your first actual show, and I know that you get nervous about this type of stuff. I just don’t want you pushing yourself to reach some invisible expectation.” Shiro responds, placing his gloved hand on Lance’s shoulder in comfort. It’s now been a complete year since Lance has agreed to stay; and it’s had its ups and downs. And Shiro is right, this isn’t the first time Lance has tried to do one of Allura’s educational shows to try and show that he wants to be apart of their family. And he’s backed out before, his anxiety and fear getting the best of him and making him spiral into panic attacks.

But he also knows that Shiro and everyone else will have his back if anything goes wrong; all he has to do is signal to Shiro that he’s not feeling well and they will leave the “show pool” (as Coran calls it) and no one will be mad at him for freaking out.

Lance knows that he has the support of everyone here to help him through this; this time he feels ready as ever to go out there wow everyone. He can hear Allura through the opening between the tanks, talking about the wonders of the deep sea, her voice firm and in control and yet laced with all of the love and passion she has for the creatures that live in the ocean. Lance has heard it time and time again through all the school field trips that she’s led through his area, and the times that he’s watched Matt and Pidge do these shows; by he can’t help the pride filling his chest as she explains the strength and dexterity that he and so many other midnight zone creatures have. He can see the bubbles coming from Shiro as he laughs at how Lance puffs out his chest, earning himself a quick slap on the leg from Lance’s tail.

Shiroms attention is pulled away from him as he hears their cue from Allura, and giving one last questioning glance towards Lance, and getting a confident nod in return, Shiro swims ahead of him into the show pool, letting Lance follow through when he’s ready.   
With one last glance towards the handmade bracelet tied around the base of his tail, watching the beads and letters spin with each movement, Lance can feel the happiness swell once more in his chest as he travels through the opening, and into The gazed of dozens of children, all of them watching him with awe and surprise as he easily follows after Shiro, practically dwarfing him in size as they float asking one another, Allura’s explanations and details highlighting everything about him. About his home back in the wild; how he was captured and sold, about the dangers and pain that he experienced because of evil humans in the world, about how he made his way to their clinic and ultimates decided to stay with them. He could see the admiration and shock in their eyes through it all; and he could feel the love and support that Shiro gave him in each touch and stroke of his tail, how he gently guided Lanxe around, letting him take the reins if and when he wanted to; letting him do whatever tricks Lance thought of. In the way that Shiro takes his hand in his own like it was the most natural thing in the world..

And one pair of young eyes in the crowd watches it all; full of recognition and glee as she watches her first friend be truly free.

 

**Author's Note:**

> MUHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!cliff hangar!!!!!!
> 
> But honestly, I just couldn't decide on which ending to go with, so I'm leaving it up to you.
> 
> Leave in the comments which ending you want: the one where he stays, or the one where he goes. 
> 
> Whichever one gets the most is the one I'll do! 
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos; they make me smile at my phone like an idiot and makes my day that much better! 
> 
> Thank you!


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